Zijin News on 11th November 2020, The main access tunnels between the northern and southern declines at the Kakula Mine of Zijin Mining in DRC were connected in the high-grade core of the deposit. The initial joinning of tunnels improves underground ventilation and enables entry into high-grade ore from both sides of the deposit for mining crews. This connection of tunnels 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. These two blocks alone contain more than 700,000 tonnes of in-situ copper. 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.
Kakula mine is the first of multiple, high grade, underground copper mines to be developed on the project’s 400-square-kilometre mining licence. The second set of connection drives is expected to complete by June 2021, opening up an additional high-grade and medium-grade mining block. The overall ore available for mining will increase to approximately 26 million tonnes.Phase 1 development of Kamoa Kakula project has completed around 58% with first production of copper concentrate in July 2021. The project’s phased expansion scenario to 19 Mtpa would position Kamoa-Kakula as the world’s second-largest copper mining complex, with peak annual copper production of more than 800,000 tonnes.
A recent, independent audit of Kamoa-Kakula's greenhouse gas intensity metrics performed by Hatch Ltd. of Mississauga, Canada, confirmed that the project will be among the world's lowest greenhouse gas emitters per unit of copper produced.