Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines announced results from another sixteen holes of the ongoing 2016 drilling campaign at the Kakula Discovery on the company’s Tier One Kamoa Copper Project -a joint venture with China’s Zijin Mining- near Kolwezi, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to Ivanhoe, the latest results reinforce the exceptional grades and shallow, flat-lying geometry of the Kakula mineralized zone.
“The consistent, bottom-loaded nature of Kakula mineralization supports the creation of selective mineralized zones at cut-offs of between 1.0% and 3.0% copper, and potentially higher,” the company announced in a press release.
In detail, the Kakula copper mineralization displays vertical mineral zonation from chalcopyrite (approximately 35% copper) to bornite (approximately 63% copper) to chalcocite (approximately 80% copper), with the highest copper grades associated with the siltstone unit consistently characterized by chalcocite-dominant mineralization.
Ivanhoe has said that development at Kamoa is progressing ahead of plan. The area is thought to hold the world’s largest undeveloped high-grade copper discovery.