Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) announced on Tuesday that it has achieved the first concentrate production at the Phase 3 concentrator of its Kamoa-Kakula operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The Phase 3 concentrator was completed almost two quarters ahead of schedule and is expected to increase Kamoa-Kakula’s output to over 600,000 tonnes of copper annually once fully ramped up.
With a design capacity of five million tonnes per year, the Phase 3 concentrator’s capacity is 30% greater than the Phase 1 and 2 concentrators, which are located 10 km from the Phase 3 site.
In May, the Phase 1 and 2 concentrators produced 35,474 tonnes of copper, marking the best performance in the past 12 months.
With the addition of the third concentrator, Kamoa-Kakula has become the third-largest copper mining complex in the world, following Escondida in Chile and Grasberg in Indonesia. It is also the largest copper operation on the African continent.
By 12:30 p.m. EDT, shares of Ivanhoe Mines were down 1.96%. The Vancouver-based copper miner has a market capitalization of C$23.3 billion ($20.6 billion).
