Canadian miners eye DRC

Vancouver-based Ivanhoe Mines has embarked on a pre-feasibility study for the Tier One Kakula copper mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to Ivanhoe founder, Robert Friedland, the expected six milliontonne-per-annum (6 Mtpa) operation at Kakula would average 6.8% copper over the first 5 years.
An estimated US$1.1 billion development capital is required for the project. Friedland said the Kakula development would take Ivanhoe Mines from being one of world’s top mine finders to one of the world’s leading producers of copper – as well as palladium, platinum, zinc, nickel, gold, silver and rhodium from the other two
major mining projects it was developing in southern Africa. “We have also commissioned an independent preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for an expanded Kakula-Kamoa production rate of 18 Mtpa, supplied initially by a 6 Mtpa mine at Kakula.