Modern Mining September 2019

COPPER

Kakula reaches high-grade ore The advancement of the first connecting underground drift, designed to tunnel through the centre of the high-grade orebody and open up the Kakula copper mine’s initial mineral reserves, has reached the edge of the high-grade ore. Grades of approximately 4 % copper have been returned from sampling, and grades are expected to significantly increase as the devel- opment crews advance the drifts toward the deposit’s central mining zones that are in excess of 8 % copper. near-surface, flat-lying, stratiform copper deposit which has been independently ranked as the world’s largest undeveloped, high-grade copper discovery. It is also the biggest copper discovery ever made on the African continent. “This intersection marks a significant milestone in the context of our exploration and development efforts at Kamoa-Kakula that began more than 13 years ago,” said David Edwards, Geology Manager, Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project. “Now that you can see and touch Kakula’s high-grade copper ore, it really hits home that we are well underway toward building the first of multiple high-grade copper mines in the area.”

K akula is located 25 km to the west of the town of Kolwezi in the DRC’s Lualaba Province and forms part of the Kamoa-Kakula project which is being developed by a joint venture of TSX- listed Ivanhoe Mines (39,6 %), Zijin Mining Group (39,6 %), Crystal River Global (0,8 %) and the DRC government (20 %). Kamoa-Kakula is a very large,

The Kakula connection drift is being developed to rapidly gain access to the highest grades in the cen- tre of the deposit. It will also connect with the Kakula South ventilation decline to increase the air flow to the underground working areas in the large-scale

22  MODERN MINING  September 2019