https://www.miningweekly.com

Friedland sees logistics cost squeeze easing

30th March 2022

By: Reuters

  

Font size: - +

High shipping costs have posed a "challenge" for Democratic Republic of Congo-focused copper producer Ivanhoe Mines, but an alternative route to port via Angola should ease the squeeze, co-chairperson Robert Friedland said on Wednesday.

"Worldwide shipping costs have gone crazy for everybody," Friedland told the CRU-CESCO World Copper Conference in Santiago. "It has posed a challenge, but we see that coming down and you can move the material, it just takes a bit longer."

Of the $1.28 a pound costs reported by the company for the last quarter of 2021, the cost of logistics for delivery to China accounted for $0.37, or 29%.

Ivanhoe, which operates the Kamoa-Kakula copper mine in southern Congo's Lualaba province, currently trucks its output to the South African port of Durban.

It is now looking at using an alternative route through Angola to cut back on transportation costs, Friedland said.

"It's about a third of the distance and a new Angolan railroad is going to move us much closer to the ocean," he said.

Ivanhoe is working with its joint venture partner Zijin Mining to bring down costs, he added. "We see a lot of shipping alternatives to using containers," he said.

The cost of shipping containers has surged from pre-pandemic levels.

Kamoa-Kakula produced 105,884 tonnes of copper in concentrate last year.

Ivanhoe is "very interested" in expanding into the United States, Friedland said, adding that the country is under-explored and some places have "enormous" potential copper resources.

US President Joe Biden has voiced support for new mines in the country to boost domestic production of minerals used in electric vehicles.

Edited by Reuters

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION