Modern Mining August 2016

COPPER

Kakula could be “Africa’s most significant copper discovery”

Ivanhoe Mines has announced assay results from an ad- ditional eight holes of its ongoing drilling campaign at its Kakula discovery at its Kamoa copper project near the min- ing centre of Kolwezi in the DRC’s Katanga Province. Com- menting on the results, Robert Friedland, Executive Chair- man of TSX-listed Ivanhoe, says that Kakula could prove to be Africa’s most significant copper discovery.

expertise and a total investment of several hun- dred million dollars. “Our perseverance and eventual success in unlocking Kamoa’s world-scale potential was recognised by the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada in March 2015 with the presentation of the prestigious Thayer Lindsley International Discovery Award to key members of the Ivanhoe Mines exploration team. “However, given the remarkable exploration success we have had to date at the Kakula dis- covery, as it has been progressively revealed during the past year, we believe that this new copper discovery is substantially richer, thicker and more consistent than other miner- alisation that we have found elsewhere on the Kamoa project. The results speak volumes: the Kakula discovery is a complete game changer in our planning for the development of the Kamoa project.” Kamoa’s indicated mineral resources pres- ently total 752 Mt grading 2,67 % copper and containing 44,3 billion pounds of copper at a 1 % copper cut-off grade and minimum thick- ness of 3 m. The project also has inferred

E xplaining the history of the Kamoa project, Friedland says that Ivan- hoe’s geologists started the initial exploration programme at Kamoa in 2003, at which point it was noth- ing more than an unknown grass-roots pros- pect generated by Ivanhoe’s geological team and covered with a thin layer of Kalahari sand, sitting in a previously unrecognised district within the Central African Copperbelt. “We made our initial significant discovery at Kamoa in 2008,” he says. “The quest, which by 2013 showed that Kamoa is the world’s larg- est, undeveloped, high-grade copper discovery, took more than 12 years of dogged explora- tion, dedicated geological and geotechnical

Boxcut and surface facilities at Kansoko Sud. The Kakula exploration area is approximately 10 km south- west of Kansoko Sud.

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36  MODERN MINING  August 2016