We have until the 5th of February to pay and even then proceedings only 'may' be discontinued
At the AGM Nigel advised he would be making the first draw down on Locke Funds the following week to pay the outstanding legal fees.
You should let the ICSID knowAt the AGM Nigel advised he would be making the first draw down on Locke Funds the following week to pay the outstanding legal fees.
I would not expect an announcement,but consider it already done
Well done Australia and well done Beau Webster.......a very good replacement for a miserably out of form Marsh !
Great to see Mitch get a few days practice putting his feet up ahead of tonight's festivities
Great question ...!
Yes also this is about failure to pay ICSID FEES....!..????????
anyone has access to the afr and this article? curious on what they say re these miners in the drc.
Why the US wants BHP and Rio to get crazy rich in the Congo
BHP and Rio Tinto see just one problem with the big new copper mine Robert Friedland has built in the DRC. But the US government reckons it has the solutionwww.afr.com
BHP and Rio Tinto see just one problem with the big new copper mine Robert Friedland has built in the DRC. But the US government reckons it has the solution
Who???
yup love ignore, eat a bag of dix toiletThere are a few sections of that article that could be dissected and used on a Friday , it tells us that AVZ is and always will be on its own in the battle .Why the US wants BHP and Rio to get crazy rich in the Congo
Peter KerResources reporter
Jan 6, 2025 – 5.00am
If a sequel is ever made to the 2018 box office hit Crazy Rich Asians, it could well be Crazy Rich in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
American billionaire Robert Friedland owned the film production company that made the former, and his flagship copper company Ivanhoe Mines is fast achieving the latter.
Ivanhoe talisman Robert Friedland was in Sydney in November. Rhett Wyman
In the decade since Rio Tinto bought Friedland out of Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi copper project, the legendary explorer has found and built another of the world’s great copper mines, this time at Kamoa-Kakula in the DRC.
The dirt at Kamoa-Kakula is fabulously rich in copper and much of the power for the mine comes from carbon-free hydroelectric generators nearby.
Production has been under way for just over three years, but already Kamoa-Kakula is the world’s fourth-biggest copper producer. If expansions go to plan, it could sneak into second place by 2028
At a time when BHP and Rio are hungry for copper and pulling the trigger on acquisitions, it’s curious that Ivanhoe and Kamoa-Kakula haven’t yet caught a bid.
Compared to BHP’s highly complicated attempt to acquire Anglo American last year, a bid for Ivanhoe – which owns 39.6 per cent of Kamoa-Kakula – would be simpler to complete and should be doable at half the price.
The big Australian miners are impressed by what Friedland has created in the DRC; a delegation from Rio have visited Kamoa-Kakula, and according to those within earshot, the delegation left the DRC thinking they had seen the world’s best copper mine.
Friedland has many admirers in the boardrooms of BHP and Rio. One person who serves as a director on one such board told The Australian Financial Review they consider Friedland “a genius”.
It’s not just Friedland’s ability to find copper mines that has impressed; Friedland’s work on “pulsed power” has also got the big miners excited.
Pulsed power is a method of accumulating electrical energy over a long period then releasing it instantaneously; thereby compressing and concentrating it to deliver a greater force.
The Friedland camp reckons pulsed power could allow the mining industry to dramatically reduce the amount of energy it consumes when grinding and drilling through rock.
BHP chief executive Mike Henry was so impressed by pulsed power he bought BHP a stake in two of the Friedland companies trying to apply the technology; I-Pulse and I-Rox. Henry then made a personal appearance in a promotional video for I-Rox, describing it as a “breakthrough technology” that could “radically transform the way we go about the act of mining and processing”.
But as the deification of Friedland gathers pace, one senior executive from the big two Australian miners who sat down with the Financial Review on the condition of anonymity pointed out a fly in the ointment at Kamoa-Kakula – one that may explain why Ivanhoe has eluded potential acquirers.
It’s not so much about the DRC’s traditional reputation for sovereign risk; miners are generally encouraged by the way DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has prioritised investment into the DRC from American and European sources.
Tshisekedi has been rewarded by the US State Department for his perceived progress on human rights and anti-corruption measures, winning greater access to US markets under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Senior people now believe the DRC is investible for the right project; an extraordinary notion given the DRC was a byword for corruption and child labour barely a decade ago. (These days, Mali is the place mining executives refuse to go, lest they be held hostage.)
Which brings us back to the perceived problem with Kamoa-Kakula: transport and logistics.
The mine is land-locked about 1700 kilometres from the coast as the crow flies.
The vast majority of the copper produced at Kamoa-Kakula over the past three years has been trucked up to 3000 kilometres to ports like Durban in South Africa, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Walvis Bay in Namibia or Beira in Mozambique.
A return journey from Kamoa-Kakula to Durban often took 45 days, and rose to 70 days with congestion. Border crossings in Africa only create potential for complications.
The logistical cost of getting Kamoa-Kakula’s copper to port has been approximately 30 to 40 per cent of the mine’s C1 unit cost in recent years. According to Ivanhoe’s market filings, the C1 unit costs at Kamoa-Kakula were $US1.69 per pound in the September quarter.
That’s fairly competitive with the C1 costs BHP expects in the year to June 2025 at Chile’s Escondida (between $US1.30 and $US1.60 per pound) and its South Australian copper mines (between $US1.30 and $US1.80 per pound).
Those two BHP copper hubs are 170 kilometres and 560 kilometres from port respectively, and they also have shorter shipping journeys to customers in North Asia.
Ivanhoe reports another number called “cost of sales”, which was $US1.80 per pound in the three months to September 30.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of; it makes Kamoa-Kakula a cheaper mine than BHP’s Spence asset in Chile, and many of the world’s copper mines.
Two big efforts are under way to solve Kamoa-Kakula’s transport challenges and make it a lower cost producer.
Ivanhoe and its partners are building a smelter which will allow the mine to sell copper metal with 99 per cent purity, as opposed to the concentrate containing 50 per cent copper it mostly sells today.
The smelter will fire up in 2025, and selling copper with 99 per cent purity will mean Kamoa-Kakula doesn’t waste time and money transporting waste material to customers.
Ivanhoe reckons the smelter and the product switch could cut unit costs by 20 per cent and reduce the carbon intensity of each pound of copper by 46 per cent.
The US government is also determined to solve Ivanhoe’s transportation problems, and is pumping money into a 1739 kilometre rail and logistics corridor that will connect central African mines like Kamoa-Kakula to Lobito port in Angola.
The Lobito corridor is the US and European governments’ answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is designed to get African critical minerals to market faster, and to limit Chinese dominance of them.
The DRC overtook Peru as the world’s second-biggest copper producer in 2024, and Chinese companies like CMOC and Zijin are established players in the DRC.
Zijin is Ivanhoe’s partner at Kamoa-Kakula with a 39.6 per cent stake in the mine and 12.2 per cent of Ivanhoe’s shares. Chinese giant Citic owns 22.4 per cent of Ivanhoe.
The US government would dearly love for Ivanhoe’s stake in Kamoa-Kakula to stay in allied hands, lest China take control ahead of a decade when copper demand for decarbonisation and defence infrastructure is expected to soar.
It is no coincidence that the Lobito railway passes within five kilometres of Kamoa-Kakula, and the mine was among the first users of the railway when it sent trial volumes to Lobito in 2024.
Kamoa-Kakula is signed up to ship about half of its volumes to Lobito.
BHP and Rio have been heavily encouraged by their friends in the US State Department to get acquainted with the benefits of the Lobito corridor; the US funded rail network could be extended to help BHP and New York-listed Lifezone Metals develop the Kabanga nickel project in nearby Tanzania.
US President Joe Biden even travelled to Lobito port in early December, to observe its progress and pledge more money.
By this time next year, both the new smelter at Kamoa-Kakula and the Lobito corridor will be significantly advanced, and Ivanhoe’s logistics problems will be substantially solved.
Perhaps that will be the right time for BHP or Rio to get crazy rich in the DRC.
Related
"It’s not so much about the DRC’s traditional reputation for sovereign risk; miners are generally encouraged by the way DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has prioritized investment into the DRC from American and European sources. Senior people now believe the DRC is investible ."Why the US wants BHP and Rio to get crazy rich in the Congo
Peter KerResources reporter
Jan 6, 2025 – 5.00am
If a sequel is ever made to the 2018 box office hit Crazy Rich Asians, it could well be Crazy Rich in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
American billionaire Robert Friedland owned the film production company that made the former, and his flagship copper company Ivanhoe Mines is fast achieving the latter.
Ivanhoe talisman Robert Friedland was in Sydney in November. Rhett Wyman
In the decade since Rio Tinto bought Friedland out of Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi copper project, the legendary explorer has found and built another of the world’s great copper mines, this time at Kamoa-Kakula in the DRC.
The dirt at Kamoa-Kakula is fabulously rich in copper and much of the power for the mine comes from carbon-free hydroelectric generators nearby.
Production has been under way for just over three years, but already Kamoa-Kakula is the world’s fourth-biggest copper producer. If expansions go to plan, it could sneak into second place by 2028
At a time when BHP and Rio are hungry for copper and pulling the trigger on acquisitions, it’s curious that Ivanhoe and Kamoa-Kakula haven’t yet caught a bid.
Compared to BHP’s highly complicated attempt to acquire Anglo American last year, a bid for Ivanhoe – which owns 39.6 per cent of Kamoa-Kakula – would be simpler to complete and should be doable at half the price.
The big Australian miners are impressed by what Friedland has created in the DRC; a delegation from Rio have visited Kamoa-Kakula, and according to those within earshot, the delegation left the DRC thinking they had seen the world’s best copper mine.
Friedland has many admirers in the boardrooms of BHP and Rio. One person who serves as a director on one such board told The Australian Financial Review they consider Friedland “a genius”.
It’s not just Friedland’s ability to find copper mines that has impressed; Friedland’s work on “pulsed power” has also got the big miners excited.
Pulsed power is a method of accumulating electrical energy over a long period then releasing it instantaneously; thereby compressing and concentrating it to deliver a greater force.
The Friedland camp reckons pulsed power could allow the mining industry to dramatically reduce the amount of energy it consumes when grinding and drilling through rock.
BHP chief executive Mike Henry was so impressed by pulsed power he bought BHP a stake in two of the Friedland companies trying to apply the technology; I-Pulse and I-Rox. Henry then made a personal appearance in a promotional video for I-Rox, describing it as a “breakthrough technology” that could “radically transform the way we go about the act of mining and processing”.
But as the deification of Friedland gathers pace, one senior executive from the big two Australian miners who sat down with the Financial Review on the condition of anonymity pointed out a fly in the ointment at Kamoa-Kakula – one that may explain why Ivanhoe has eluded potential acquirers.
It’s not so much about the DRC’s traditional reputation for sovereign risk; miners are generally encouraged by the way DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has prioritised investment into the DRC from American and European sources.
Tshisekedi has been rewarded by the US State Department for his perceived progress on human rights and anti-corruption measures, winning greater access to US markets under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Senior people now believe the DRC is investible for the right project; an extraordinary notion given the DRC was a byword for corruption and child labour barely a decade ago. (These days, Mali is the place mining executives refuse to go, lest they be held hostage.)
Which brings us back to the perceived problem with Kamoa-Kakula: transport and logistics.
The mine is land-locked about 1700 kilometres from the coast as the crow flies.
The vast majority of the copper produced at Kamoa-Kakula over the past three years has been trucked up to 3000 kilometres to ports like Durban in South Africa, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Walvis Bay in Namibia or Beira in Mozambique.
A return journey from Kamoa-Kakula to Durban often took 45 days, and rose to 70 days with congestion. Border crossings in Africa only create potential for complications.
The logistical cost of getting Kamoa-Kakula’s copper to port has been approximately 30 to 40 per cent of the mine’s C1 unit cost in recent years. According to Ivanhoe’s market filings, the C1 unit costs at Kamoa-Kakula were $US1.69 per pound in the September quarter.
That’s fairly competitive with the C1 costs BHP expects in the year to June 2025 at Chile’s Escondida (between $US1.30 and $US1.60 per pound) and its South Australian copper mines (between $US1.30 and $US1.80 per pound).
Those two BHP copper hubs are 170 kilometres and 560 kilometres from port respectively, and they also have shorter shipping journeys to customers in North Asia.
Ivanhoe reports another number called “cost of sales”, which was $US1.80 per pound in the three months to September 30.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of; it makes Kamoa-Kakula a cheaper mine than BHP’s Spence asset in Chile, and many of the world’s copper mines.
Two big efforts are under way to solve Kamoa-Kakula’s transport challenges and make it a lower cost producer.
Ivanhoe and its partners are building a smelter which will allow the mine to sell copper metal with 99 per cent purity, as opposed to the concentrate containing 50 per cent copper it mostly sells today.
The smelter will fire up in 2025, and selling copper with 99 per cent purity will mean Kamoa-Kakula doesn’t waste time and money transporting waste material to customers.
Ivanhoe reckons the smelter and the product switch could cut unit costs by 20 per cent and reduce the carbon intensity of each pound of copper by 46 per cent.
The US government is also determined to solve Ivanhoe’s transportation problems, and is pumping money into a 1739 kilometre rail and logistics corridor that will connect central African mines like Kamoa-Kakula to Lobito port in Angola.
The Lobito corridor is the US and European governments’ answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is designed to get African critical minerals to market faster, and to limit Chinese dominance of them.
The DRC overtook Peru as the world’s second-biggest copper producer in 2024, and Chinese companies like CMOC and Zijin are established players in the DRC.
Zijin is Ivanhoe’s partner at Kamoa-Kakula with a 39.6 per cent stake in the mine and 12.2 per cent of Ivanhoe’s shares. Chinese giant Citic owns 22.4 per cent of Ivanhoe.
The US government would dearly love for Ivanhoe’s stake in Kamoa-Kakula to stay in allied hands, lest China take control ahead of a decade when copper demand for decarbonisation and defence infrastructure is expected to soar.
It is no coincidence that the Lobito railway passes within five kilometres of Kamoa-Kakula, and the mine was among the first users of the railway when it sent trial volumes to Lobito in 2024.
Kamoa-Kakula is signed up to ship about half of its volumes to Lobito.
BHP and Rio have been heavily encouraged by their friends in the US State Department to get acquainted with the benefits of the Lobito corridor; the US funded rail network could be extended to help BHP and New York-listed Lifezone Metals develop the Kabanga nickel project in nearby Tanzania.
US President Joe Biden even travelled to Lobito port in early December, to observe its progress and pledge more money.
By this time next year, both the new smelter at Kamoa-Kakula and the Lobito corridor will be significantly advanced, and Ivanhoe’s logistics problems will be substantially solved.
Perhaps that will be the right time for BHP or Rio to get crazy rich in the DRC.
Related
Whats fascinating to me is how easily Friedland has been able to do business in the DRC. Genuinely has been able to make it look like a great place for foreign investment.Why the US wants BHP and Rio to get crazy rich in the Congo
Peter KerResources reporter
Jan 6, 2025 – 5.00am
If a sequel is ever made to the 2018 box office hit Crazy Rich Asians, it could well be Crazy Rich in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
American billionaire Robert Friedland owned the film production company that made the former, and his flagship copper company Ivanhoe Mines is fast achieving the latter.
Ivanhoe talisman Robert Friedland was in Sydney in November. Rhett Wyman
In the decade since Rio Tinto bought Friedland out of Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi copper project, the legendary explorer has found and built another of the world’s great copper mines, this time at Kamoa-Kakula in the DRC.
The dirt at Kamoa-Kakula is fabulously rich in copper and much of the power for the mine comes from carbon-free hydroelectric generators nearby.
Production has been under way for just over three years, but already Kamoa-Kakula is the world’s fourth-biggest copper producer. If expansions go to plan, it could sneak into second place by 2028
At a time when BHP and Rio are hungry for copper and pulling the trigger on acquisitions, it’s curious that Ivanhoe and Kamoa-Kakula haven’t yet caught a bid.
Compared to BHP’s highly complicated attempt to acquire Anglo American last year, a bid for Ivanhoe – which owns 39.6 per cent of Kamoa-Kakula – would be simpler to complete and should be doable at half the price.
The big Australian miners are impressed by what Friedland has created in the DRC; a delegation from Rio have visited Kamoa-Kakula, and according to those within earshot, the delegation left the DRC thinking they had seen the world’s best copper mine.
Friedland has many admirers in the boardrooms of BHP and Rio. One person who serves as a director on one such board told The Australian Financial Review they consider Friedland “a genius”.
It’s not just Friedland’s ability to find copper mines that has impressed; Friedland’s work on “pulsed power” has also got the big miners excited.
Pulsed power is a method of accumulating electrical energy over a long period then releasing it instantaneously; thereby compressing and concentrating it to deliver a greater force.
The Friedland camp reckons pulsed power could allow the mining industry to dramatically reduce the amount of energy it consumes when grinding and drilling through rock.
BHP chief executive Mike Henry was so impressed by pulsed power he bought BHP a stake in two of the Friedland companies trying to apply the technology; I-Pulse and I-Rox. Henry then made a personal appearance in a promotional video for I-Rox, describing it as a “breakthrough technology” that could “radically transform the way we go about the act of mining and processing”.
But as the deification of Friedland gathers pace, one senior executive from the big two Australian miners who sat down with the Financial Review on the condition of anonymity pointed out a fly in the ointment at Kamoa-Kakula – one that may explain why Ivanhoe has eluded potential acquirers.
It’s not so much about the DRC’s traditional reputation for sovereign risk; miners are generally encouraged by the way DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has prioritised investment into the DRC from American and European sources.
Tshisekedi has been rewarded by the US State Department for his perceived progress on human rights and anti-corruption measures, winning greater access to US markets under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Senior people now believe the DRC is investible for the right project; an extraordinary notion given the DRC was a byword for corruption and child labour barely a decade ago. (These days, Mali is the place mining executives refuse to go, lest they be held hostage.)
Which brings us back to the perceived problem with Kamoa-Kakula: transport and logistics.
The mine is land-locked about 1700 kilometres from the coast as the crow flies.
The vast majority of the copper produced at Kamoa-Kakula over the past three years has been trucked up to 3000 kilometres to ports like Durban in South Africa, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Walvis Bay in Namibia or Beira in Mozambique.
A return journey from Kamoa-Kakula to Durban often took 45 days, and rose to 70 days with congestion. Border crossings in Africa only create potential for complications.
The logistical cost of getting Kamoa-Kakula’s copper to port has been approximately 30 to 40 per cent of the mine’s C1 unit cost in recent years. According to Ivanhoe’s market filings, the C1 unit costs at Kamoa-Kakula were $US1.69 per pound in the September quarter.
That’s fairly competitive with the C1 costs BHP expects in the year to June 2025 at Chile’s Escondida (between $US1.30 and $US1.60 per pound) and its South Australian copper mines (between $US1.30 and $US1.80 per pound).
Those two BHP copper hubs are 170 kilometres and 560 kilometres from port respectively, and they also have shorter shipping journeys to customers in North Asia.
Ivanhoe reports another number called “cost of sales”, which was $US1.80 per pound in the three months to September 30.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of; it makes Kamoa-Kakula a cheaper mine than BHP’s Spence asset in Chile, and many of the world’s copper mines.
Two big efforts are under way to solve Kamoa-Kakula’s transport challenges and make it a lower cost producer.
Ivanhoe and its partners are building a smelter which will allow the mine to sell copper metal with 99 per cent purity, as opposed to the concentrate containing 50 per cent copper it mostly sells today.
The smelter will fire up in 2025, and selling copper with 99 per cent purity will mean Kamoa-Kakula doesn’t waste time and money transporting waste material to customers.
Ivanhoe reckons the smelter and the product switch could cut unit costs by 20 per cent and reduce the carbon intensity of each pound of copper by 46 per cent.
The US government is also determined to solve Ivanhoe’s transportation problems, and is pumping money into a 1739 kilometre rail and logistics corridor that will connect central African mines like Kamoa-Kakula to Lobito port in Angola.
The Lobito corridor is the US and European governments’ answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is designed to get African critical minerals to market faster, and to limit Chinese dominance of them.
The DRC overtook Peru as the world’s second-biggest copper producer in 2024, and Chinese companies like CMOC and Zijin are established players in the DRC.
Zijin is Ivanhoe’s partner at Kamoa-Kakula with a 39.6 per cent stake in the mine and 12.2 per cent of Ivanhoe’s shares. Chinese giant Citic owns 22.4 per cent of Ivanhoe.
The US government would dearly love for Ivanhoe’s stake in Kamoa-Kakula to stay in allied hands, lest China take control ahead of a decade when copper demand for decarbonisation and defence infrastructure is expected to soar.
It is no coincidence that the Lobito railway passes within five kilometres of Kamoa-Kakula, and the mine was among the first users of the railway when it sent trial volumes to Lobito in 2024.
Kamoa-Kakula is signed up to ship about half of its volumes to Lobito.
BHP and Rio have been heavily encouraged by their friends in the US State Department to get acquainted with the benefits of the Lobito corridor; the US funded rail network could be extended to help BHP and New York-listed Lifezone Metals develop the Kabanga nickel project in nearby Tanzania.
US President Joe Biden even travelled to Lobito port in early December, to observe its progress and pledge more money.
By this time next year, both the new smelter at Kamoa-Kakula and the Lobito corridor will be significantly advanced, and Ivanhoe’s logistics problems will be substantially solved.
Perhaps that will be the right time for BHP or Rio to get crazy rich in the DRC.
Related
You do know who's the other partner in the JV?
I find it best with all things regarding AVZ to deal in what can be proved. Judging by who got the most likes tho it would seem the masses still after all that’s happened prefer feel good sentiment over facts.
Carlos are you still of the belief if we give up on the North we can move forward with Roche Dure ? Or words to that effect . If I remember correctly you were quite adamant the North (CDL) was the main issue .
It’s clear that the world is still very much focused on the DRC. Which is good news overall, as we have the means to irreparably tarnish their reputation on the world stage.Why the US wants BHP and Rio to get crazy rich in the Congo
Peter KerResources reporter
Jan 6, 2025 – 5.00am
If a sequel is ever made to the 2018 box office hit Crazy Rich Asians, it could well be Crazy Rich in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
American billionaire Robert Friedland owned the film production company that made the former, and his flagship copper company Ivanhoe Mines is fast achieving the latter.
Ivanhoe talisman Robert Friedland was in Sydney in November. Rhett Wyman
In the decade since Rio Tinto bought Friedland out of Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi copper project, the legendary explorer has found and built another of the world’s great copper mines, this time at Kamoa-Kakula in the DRC.
The dirt at Kamoa-Kakula is fabulously rich in copper and much of the power for the mine comes from carbon-free hydroelectric generators nearby.
Production has been under way for just over three years, but already Kamoa-Kakula is the world’s fourth-biggest copper producer. If expansions go to plan, it could sneak into second place by 2028
At a time when BHP and Rio are hungry for copper and pulling the trigger on acquisitions, it’s curious that Ivanhoe and Kamoa-Kakula haven’t yet caught a bid.
Compared to BHP’s highly complicated attempt to acquire Anglo American last year, a bid for Ivanhoe – which owns 39.6 per cent of Kamoa-Kakula – would be simpler to complete and should be doable at half the price.
The big Australian miners are impressed by what Friedland has created in the DRC; a delegation from Rio have visited Kamoa-Kakula, and according to those within earshot, the delegation left the DRC thinking they had seen the world’s best copper mine.
Friedland has many admirers in the boardrooms of BHP and Rio. One person who serves as a director on one such board told The Australian Financial Review they consider Friedland “a genius”.
It’s not just Friedland’s ability to find copper mines that has impressed; Friedland’s work on “pulsed power” has also got the big miners excited.
Pulsed power is a method of accumulating electrical energy over a long period then releasing it instantaneously; thereby compressing and concentrating it to deliver a greater force.
The Friedland camp reckons pulsed power could allow the mining industry to dramatically reduce the amount of energy it consumes when grinding and drilling through rock.
BHP chief executive Mike Henry was so impressed by pulsed power he bought BHP a stake in two of the Friedland companies trying to apply the technology; I-Pulse and I-Rox. Henry then made a personal appearance in a promotional video for I-Rox, describing it as a “breakthrough technology” that could “radically transform the way we go about the act of mining and processing”.
But as the deification of Friedland gathers pace, one senior executive from the big two Australian miners who sat down with the Financial Review on the condition of anonymity pointed out a fly in the ointment at Kamoa-Kakula – one that may explain why Ivanhoe has eluded potential acquirers.
It’s not so much about the DRC’s traditional reputation for sovereign risk; miners are generally encouraged by the way DRC president Félix Tshisekedi has prioritised investment into the DRC from American and European sources.
Tshisekedi has been rewarded by the US State Department for his perceived progress on human rights and anti-corruption measures, winning greater access to US markets under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).
Senior people now believe the DRC is investible for the right project; an extraordinary notion given the DRC was a byword for corruption and child labour barely a decade ago. (These days, Mali is the place mining executives refuse to go, lest they be held hostage.)
Which brings us back to the perceived problem with Kamoa-Kakula: transport and logistics.
The mine is land-locked about 1700 kilometres from the coast as the crow flies.
The vast majority of the copper produced at Kamoa-Kakula over the past three years has been trucked up to 3000 kilometres to ports like Durban in South Africa, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, Walvis Bay in Namibia or Beira in Mozambique.
A return journey from Kamoa-Kakula to Durban often took 45 days, and rose to 70 days with congestion. Border crossings in Africa only create potential for complications.
The logistical cost of getting Kamoa-Kakula’s copper to port has been approximately 30 to 40 per cent of the mine’s C1 unit cost in recent years. According to Ivanhoe’s market filings, the C1 unit costs at Kamoa-Kakula were $US1.69 per pound in the September quarter.
That’s fairly competitive with the C1 costs BHP expects in the year to June 2025 at Chile’s Escondida (between $US1.30 and $US1.60 per pound) and its South Australian copper mines (between $US1.30 and $US1.80 per pound).
Those two BHP copper hubs are 170 kilometres and 560 kilometres from port respectively, and they also have shorter shipping journeys to customers in North Asia.
Ivanhoe reports another number called “cost of sales”, which was $US1.80 per pound in the three months to September 30.
That’s nothing to be ashamed of; it makes Kamoa-Kakula a cheaper mine than BHP’s Spence asset in Chile, and many of the world’s copper mines.
Two big efforts are under way to solve Kamoa-Kakula’s transport challenges and make it a lower cost producer.
Ivanhoe and its partners are building a smelter which will allow the mine to sell copper metal with 99 per cent purity, as opposed to the concentrate containing 50 per cent copper it mostly sells today.
The smelter will fire up in 2025, and selling copper with 99 per cent purity will mean Kamoa-Kakula doesn’t waste time and money transporting waste material to customers.
Ivanhoe reckons the smelter and the product switch could cut unit costs by 20 per cent and reduce the carbon intensity of each pound of copper by 46 per cent.
The US government is also determined to solve Ivanhoe’s transportation problems, and is pumping money into a 1739 kilometre rail and logistics corridor that will connect central African mines like Kamoa-Kakula to Lobito port in Angola.
The Lobito corridor is the US and European governments’ answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. It is designed to get African critical minerals to market faster, and to limit Chinese dominance of them.
The DRC overtook Peru as the world’s second-biggest copper producer in 2024, and Chinese companies like CMOC and Zijin are established players in the DRC.
Zijin is Ivanhoe’s partner at Kamoa-Kakula with a 39.6 per cent stake in the mine and 12.2 per cent of Ivanhoe’s shares. Chinese giant Citic owns 22.4 per cent of Ivanhoe.
The US government would dearly love for Ivanhoe’s stake in Kamoa-Kakula to stay in allied hands, lest China take control ahead of a decade when copper demand for decarbonisation and defence infrastructure is expected to soar.
It is no coincidence that the Lobito railway passes within five kilometres of Kamoa-Kakula, and the mine was among the first users of the railway when it sent trial volumes to Lobito in 2024.
Kamoa-Kakula is signed up to ship about half of its volumes to Lobito.
BHP and Rio have been heavily encouraged by their friends in the US State Department to get acquainted with the benefits of the Lobito corridor; the US funded rail network could be extended to help BHP and New York-listed Lifezone Metals develop the Kabanga nickel project in nearby Tanzania.
US President Joe Biden even travelled to Lobito port in early December, to observe its progress and pledge more money.
By this time next year, both the new smelter at Kamoa-Kakula and the Lobito corridor will be significantly advanced, and Ivanhoe’s logistics problems will be substantially solved.
Perhaps that will be the right time for BHP or Rio to get crazy rich in the DRC.
Related
