Ivanhoe Mines continues work on project portfolio

11th September 2020 By: Simone Liedtke - Creamer Media Social Media Editor & Senior Writer

Canadian mining firm Ivanhoe Mines is in the process of updating the figures for an updated bankable feasibility study (BFS) and phased development plan for the preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for its South African Platreef operation.

The updated BFS and PEA should be published within the next month, Ivanhoe president Marna Cloete said during an investor-focused webinar on September 10.

The miner also recently sunk the first shaft at the platinum-group metals (PGMs) operation, which the company hopes to use for first production.

Ivanhoe’s Kipushi underground zinc and copper project, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), meanwhile, is set to be bolstered by the recent boost in zinc prices, Cloete said.

Describing it as the company’s up-and-coming success story, Ivanhoe corporate VP Alex Packard also gave more insight into the company’s Kamoa-Kakula copper project, also in the DRC.

For this project, the company’s integrated development plan (IDP) envisions the combination of three separate studies into one to look at how the mining complex will be developed over the coming decades.

Starting with Kakula, the definitive feasibility study outlines a six-million-tonne-a-year mining operation, with a milling capacity of 7.6-million tonnes a year.

The mill will be built in two modules of 3.8-million tonnes each, the first of which is already “half built”, said Packard.

However, the “big picture” is the company’s 19-million-tonne-a-year Kamoa-Kakula PEA, which Packard said “captures all of the resources found to date” across the mining licence, as well as the phased expansion of the project up to 19-million tonnes a year.

The project is fully funded until first copper production, which is planned for the third quarter of 2021.