Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN, Stock Forum) further de-risked and reduced costs at its wholly owned Kamoa copper project, Africa's largest, high-grade copper discovery located near the mining centre of Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo's southern province of Katanga, when the company released a summary of recent metallurgical flotation testwork at Kamoa.
According to the news release, the bench-scale metallurgical floatation testwork was carried out on a composite sample of drill core from the Kansoko Sud and Kansoko Centrale areas in the southern part of the Kamoa resource area.
Highlights from the test results included a copper recovery rate of 88.3% at a copper concentrate grade of 39.0% with very low arsenic levels of 0.010%, far lower than the limit of 0.5% allowed by Chinese smelters.
As a result, flowsheet improvements are anticipated to lower up-front capital costs and reduce operational costs and risks.
Company Executive Chairman, Robert Friendland, commented on the results, “This testwork further confirms the attractiveness of the high-grade Kansoko Sud area for initial mine development at Kamoa.”
Ivanhoe Mines was in the news recently when the Vancouver-based company announced appointing Dr. Patricia Makhesha as Managing Director of its Platreef Project four days ago.
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