The Western Forelands Exploration Project consists of a licence package covering 2,393 square kilometres adjacent to the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex.
Ivanhoe founder and executive co-chairman Robert Friedland comments: “We deeply appreciate the achievements of our geological team in doubling the size of the Makoko resource in the past 18 months. The Makoko District remains open in multiple directions, offering significant opportunities for further expansion. Based on our historical experience in the Western Forelands, these high-grade sedimentary copper systems convert very high percentages of inferred resources to the indicated category as the drilling density increases. We have full confidence that the coming years, particularly 2025, will herald unprecedented progress, marked by record metres drilled and new horizons explored.”
He adds that Ivanhoe’s strength over competitors is its ability to search for new copper discoveries in the right places. “The scarcity of high-quality, undeveloped copper resources is becoming increasingly evident and the ongoing supply shortage in the copper concentrate market will grow. To date, Ivanhoe has delineated more than 20 billion pounds of copper in the Western Forelands, outside of Kamoa-Kakula, at a high cut-off grade of 1%, and we are just beginning to unlock this region’s vast potential.
Friedland says copper has become the defining strategic metal of the 21st century, and the world is critically unprepared for the rising, unstoppable demand for copper metal. “At Ivanhoe Mines, we are dedicated to building the next generation of copper mines, and they will be in the Western Forelands.”
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The company’s chief operating officer, Mark Farren, says although the Western Forelands is a greenfield discovery, building a mine there is in many ways more typical of a brownfield project. “Before we started building Kamoa-Kakula’s Phase 1 mine, we had to establish power infrastructure and establish road and rail logistics, as well as find and train a team to build and deliver the mine on budget and ahead of schedule. We now have all of this infrastructure in place that will help us build our next mine next door in the Western Forelands. These attributes could even lower the cut-off grade of what is possible to mine economically.”
The Western Forelands is the world’s richest copper basin, and the DRC the world’s second largest copper producer, which makes it a premier destination for building new copper mines. Farren says the country sets the benchmark for capital efficiency when it comes to new copper mines as the endowment is high grade and the topography is flat.
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