A new daily production record of 721 tonnes of copper in filtered concentrate was achieved the day after the second filter press went live.
Phase 2 of Kamoa’s expansion will double production to approximately 400,000 tonnes of copper per year.
KOLWEZI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, 12 OCTOBER 2021- The second filter press at Kamoa Copper began operating on 3rd October and has already generated more copper concentrate than originally planned. The second filter press enables Kamoa’s Phase 1 concentrator to take advantage of the unusually high-grade copper ore being processed directly from Kakula’s underground mining operations and surface stockpiles.
Kamoa Copper’s Head of Projects, Steve Amos commented: “Kamoa Copper’s Phase 1 milling and flotation capacity has demonstrated to be in excess of design parameters. As such, the additional filter press enables Kamoa to take advantage of the extra mill throughput to produce more copper than the estimated design output of approximately 200,000 tonnes per year. The additional filtration capacity also will allow Kamoa’s operations team to find the ‘sweet spot’ between copper recoveries and concentrate copper grades.”
During initial commissioning of the second filter press, a new daily production record of 721 tonnes of copper in filtered concentrate was achieved on October 4, 2021. The second filter press increases production in a copper concentrator that already generates more throughput than previously planned. The Phase 1 copper concentrator produced a run-rate throughput of 12,600 tonnes of ore per day, since the previous reporting month, which is 10.5% greater than the planned throughput of approximately 11,400 tonnes per day.
Watch a brief video on the commissioning of the second concentrate filter press at Kamoa Copper: Click Here
Furthermore, the development of Kamoa Copper’s Phase 2 concentrator plant, which is planned to double copper production to almost 400,000 tonnes per year, is proceeding ahead of schedule.
The project team is expecting the Phase 2 concentrator plant to start operations in the second quarter (Q2) of 2022.
The Phase 2 concentrator plant, which has a capacity of 3.8 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), is a replica of the Phase 1 concentrator plant, and is being built alongside the Phase 1 plant. Amos further stated that “Kamoa has a third filter press on order that will be installed as part of the Phase 2 concentrator expansion.” The Phase 2 concentrator was more than half completed by the end of September 2021.
“The Congolese mining industry has a very bright future indeed. Having raised the bar for construction delivery, Kamoa Copper is setting its sights on raising the environmental, social and governance bar for the ultra-low-carbon copper production our world desperately needs for the energy transformation. We have all the pieces to do just that. We have the right team, the right stakeholders and are proud to be doing this in partnership with the DRC government,” explains Ivanhoe Founder & Executive Co-Chair Robert Friedland.
By the end of September, Kamoa Copper had surface ore stockpiles of roughly 3.66 million tonnes grading 4.73 percent copper, containing more than 173,000 tonnes of copper (or 381.4 million lbs. of copper). These stockpiles are in place to facilitate a seamless and efficient transition to steady-state production for the Phase 2 concentrator in 2022.
In a COVID-19 world where mining, infrastructure, and other industrial projects are routinely massively delayed, hindered by supply bottlenecks and predictably subject to significant cost over-runs, Kamoa Copper is proud that its accomplishments are ahead of schedule and on budget.
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