The announcement was made by Executive Co-Chairman Robert Friedland and President Marna Cloete, highlighting the success of the company’s 2024 drill campaign in unlocking further potential at the site.
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With this progress, the company is now focusing on advancing an independent Mineral Resource Estimate for Makoko, Makoko West, and Kitoko, expected in Q2 2025. The growing scale of the discovery reaffirms Ivanhoe’s success in copper exploration within the DRC, a region critical to the future supply of the metal essential for global electrification and green energy transition.
The 2024 drilling program was Ivanhoe’s largest to date with over 80,000 meters completed. Its focus is on a potential western extension of the Makoko deposit and expanding the strike of the adjacent Kitoko discovery. Drilling confirmed the continuation of mineralisation by stepping further west from the Makoko area, opening a new area called “Makoko West”, which revealed shallow, and high-grade copper mineralisation. The Makoko mineralised district increased by 20% to over 13 km of strike length; mineralisation remains open in multiple directions.
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Back on November 13, 2023, it was announced that Makoko deposit, contains an Indicated Mineral Resource of 16 million tonnes at 3.55% copper and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 154 million tonnes at 1.97% copper, using a 1.5% copper cut-off.
Makoko currently is ranked as the World’s fourth-largest and highest-grade copper discovery since the discovery of Kakula in 2016. Copper mineralisation remains open in several directions, notably to the south, east, and west. The 2024 program focused primarily on step-out drilling in these various directions.
The Makoko West target is an up-dip, western extension of the Makoko deposit. 37,739 metres, or approximately 50% of total Western Foreland drilling, was conducted around the Makoko West area during 2024.
High-grade copper mineralisation at Makoko West has been intercepted between 120 and 300 metres from the surface, at a thickness of between 5 and 15 metres. With the addition of Makoko West, the total strike length of the mineralised district has increased by 20% to over 13 kilometres, which is equivalent to the strike length of the Kakula deposit, located 10 kilometres away.
Friedland commented that the western extension of Makoko is demonstrating high copper grades at shallower depths potentially a logical place to commence mine development activities in the Western Forelands.”
Looking ahead, Ivanhoe has allocated $50 million of its $75 million 2025 exploration budget to the Western Forelands, including 102,000 meters of diamond drilling and 18,000 meters of reverse circulation (RC) drilling.
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