Ivanhoe Mines scaled down its 2024 production targets at the Kamoa-Kakula mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In a press release dated October 7, the Canadian company revised its expectations from 440,000-490,000 to 425,000-450,000 tonnes of copper concentrate.
Last month, Ivanhoe was very optimistic about the mine’s outputs: "Thanks to ongoing improvements in throughput and optimized copper recovery after launching the Stage 3 concentrator fine mills, Kamoa-Kakula expects to maintain its record production run and achieve its 2024 targets".
With the commissioning of the third treatment plant last August, Kamoa-Kakula achieved a record production of 116,313 tonnes of copper concentrate in Q3 2024. So far this year, the mine has produced 303,328 tonnes, according to Ivanhoe.
While the revised estimate integrates the commissioning of the Phase 3 concentrator, it reflects "production losses due to intermittent electricity supply from the grid, especially before installing additional on-site generation capacity and ongoing agreements for electricity imports." It also includes "known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ significantly." The country’s power issues caused production in H1 2024 to fall 5% year-on-year to 187,015 tonnes.
Last year, Kamoa-Kakula produced 393,551 tonnes of copper concentrate, up 18% year-on-year. Sales in 2023 also went up, exceeding $2.7 billion. This year, they should be higher due to rising copper prices. In Q1 2024, the average copper price reached $9,215.84 per tonne compared to $8,726.90 during the same period in 2023.
Kamoa-Kakula is owned by Ivanhoe Mines (39.6%), China’s Zijin Mining Group (39.6%), Crystal River Global Limited (0.8%), and the Congolese state through Gécamines (20%). During a Council of Ministers meeting on October 4, 2024, Minister Jean-Lucien Bussa expressed a desire for closer involvement of the Congolese State in selecting buyers for the copper produced by this mine, which is not only the largest in the DRC but also ranks as the third largest copper mine in the world.
Pierre Mukoko
