TSX-listed Ivanhoe Mines’ Executive Co-Chair Robert Friedland and Chief Executive Officer Marna Cloete recently announced the company’s 2025 fourth quarter and full-year production results for the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the ultra-high-grade Kipushi zinc mine, also in the DRC.
Following the release of Kamoa-Kakula’s 2026 and 2027 production guidance on December 3, 2025, the company also announced today 2026 production guidance for the Kipushi Mine.
Kamoa-Kakula produced a total of 388 838 tonnes of copper in concentrate in 2025, within the revised guidance range of 380 000 tonnes to 420 000 tonnes. Total copper production consisted of 385,808 tonnes of copper in concentrate produced by the Phase 1, 2 and 3 concentrators, as well as 3 030 tonnes of copper in concentrate produced by the slag concentrator located at the on-site smelter.
Prior to the first feed of concentrate into the smelter furnace, as announced on December 1, 2025, the smelter’s slag concentrator was used to reprocess fines and spillage from the Phase 1, 2 and 3 concentrators during Q3 and Q4 2025. The smelter site at Kamoa-Kakula includes a 600 000-tonne-per-annum conventional concentrator plant, which under normal operating conditions is used to regrind and refloat slag produced by the smelter. Slag produced by the smelter contains approximately 4% copper, which, once reprocessed, enables the smelter to achieve a recovery rate of 98.5%. Concentrate produced by the concentrator was stored on site and will be fed into the Kamoa-Kakula smelter.
