Business
Kakula Copper Mine's Northern and Southern Access Tunnels Successfully Connected
Kakula's high-grade core now open for immediate development, where the average grade is proje...
About this update from Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. Class A
[{"type":"text","content":"Kakula Copper Mine's Northern and Southern Access Tunnels Successfully ConnectedKakula's high-grade core now open for immediate development, where the average grade is projected to exceed 8% copperKolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo--(Newsfile Corp. - November 11, 2020) -  Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) (OTCQX: IVPAF) Co-Chairs Robert Friedland and Yufeng \"Miles\" Sun today announced a major milestone in the development of the tier one Kamoa-Kakula Copper Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), with the initial joining of the main northern and southern access tunnels at the Kakula Copper Mine ─ the first of multiple, high grade, underground copper mines to be developed on the project's 400-square-kilometre mining licence.The Kakula Mine is being developed on the eastern portion of the Kakula Deposit ─ representing less than half of the overall 13.3-kilometre-long (8.3-miles) deposit. The main access tunnels (drives) between the northern and southern declines at the Kakula Mine were connected (holed) in the high-grade core of the deposit, where the average grade is projected to exceed 8% copper. This week's holing has opened up the first two high grade, drift-and-fill mining blocks totalling 10.6 million tonnes at an average grade of 6.78% copper (5.7 million tonnes @ 7.04% copper and 4.9 million tonnes @ 6.48% copper) near the centre of the deposit (see Figure 1). \"Now that we have initiated development of Kakula's first two high-grade ore blocks, it is important to note that these two areas alone contain more than 700,000 tonnes of in-situ copper, and approximately 600,000 tonnes of recoverable copper,\" said Mr. Friedland. \"With copper trading at approximately US$7,000 a tonne, the saleable value of the copper concentrate produced from these initial two blocks exceeds the estimated capital cost to develop both the first and second phases of production at Kamoa-Kakula. This is the true definition of a tier one mine.\"\"The tunneling work completed to join Kakula's northern and southern declines is comparable to driving a major tunnel ─ large enough to drive city buses through ─ from the east side to the west side of the island of Manhattan in New York,\" Mr. Friedland added.The Kakula Mine is expected to have a mine life of approximately 21 years, while the western portion of the Kakul...