Ivanplats makes major copper strike in DRC

[miningmx.com] -- IVANPLATS, the base metal and platinum exploration company controlled by Robert Friedland, has found a new copper project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) which matches the huge Oyu Tolgoi copper deposit in Mongolia. Friedland told delegates at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town on Wednesday, that Ivanplats’ Kamoa project represented a westward extension of the copperbelt in the DRC. He said Kamoa was situated some 20kms west of the Kolwezi section of the DRC Copperbelt and was larger than Kolwezi. Friedland added it was the first world-class copper discovery in the DRC since 1906 and would become the largest copper development on the African continent. “It has long been believed that the Copperbelt had reached a stage of exploration maturity and it terminated at Kolwezi. Instead, we have found a ‘sleeping giant’ just west of Kolwezi which was covered by windblown Kalahari sands. “The orebody is 22kms long and 12kms wide. It is still open in all the important directions and drilling is continuing around the clock,” Friedland said. He commented the initial discovery had been made in August 2008 and that Ivanplats had applied for a mining licence in November last year. Friedland gave few specifications for the mine to be developed at Kamoa but indicated it could have a life of up to 150 years producing at an averate rate of about 500,000t of copper annually. “We are talking about a mine with a life measured in generations rather than decades,” he said. Friedland said Ivanplats also intended developing a major zinc mine in the DRC following the purchase last year of a 68% stake in Kipushi. He said it was time to build something on the scale of Oyu Tolgoi in Africa because of the fundamentals of the copper market which indicated a huge, future undersupply of the commodity. "In five years time China and India will dominate world consumption of everything. Annual copper production needs to be doubled. "A study of conditions in the copper market indicates that it presents a potential national security crisis for the Chinese."