JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) - TSX-listed Katanga Mining mined 433 169 t of ore, at an average grade of 2.18%, to produce 9 459 t of copper, at its KOV mine, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during the fourth quarter of 2017.
In 2016, ore mined at KOV reached 825 t and was related to incidental ore mined during waste mining.
Meanwhile, as part of its commissioning phase at the Whole Ore Leach project, which forms part of the Luilu metallurgical plant, the company brought a new pump station online for hydromining activities at the Kamoto interim tailings dam, to facilitate an anticipated production increase from 300 t/h to 500 t/h.
Phase 2 construction activities at the project have continued and are progressing according to the 2018 project execution plan. Full commissioning of the second phase is expected to start in the fourth quarter of this year.
For this year, the miner expects to continue openpit mining operations to feed ore to the run-of-mine stockpiles in accordance with the optimised ore blending strategy, and waste stripping in both the KOV and Mashamba East openpits will continue.
Further, the backfill and care and maintenance activities at the KTO underground operations are expected to continue to ensure operational readiness for underground operations resuming in future years.