Kamoa Copper has set a new production record in the first quarter of 2022, with 55,602 metric tons (mt) of copper in concentrate produced. Kamoa Copper milled 1.08 million mt of ore during the quarter at an average feed grade of 5.91% copper.
On April 7, Kamoa Copper’s Phase 2, 3.8 million-mt-per-year (mt/y) concentrator plant successfully declared commercial production, and a day later achieved a new daily production record with 25,126 mt milled, and 1,202 mt of copper produced.
“The Phase 2 concentrator has been successfully commissioned in record time,” Kamoa Copper CEO Mark Farren said. “We can expect to see a doubling of copper output for the remainder of this year, as well as further increases into 2023 as the debottlenecking program is executed. It has been wonderful to see how quickly Phase 2 reached commercial production, as our team leveraged prior learnings and experience from Phase 1.”
First ore was introduced into the Phase 2 milling circuit on March 21, and the first copper concentrate produced four months ahead of the originally planned development schedule. With a design throughput of 3.8 million mt/y of ore, the Phase 2 concentrator plant is a mirror image of the Phase 1 plant.
Due to the early commissioning of the Phase 2 concentrator plant, Kamoa Copper will be able to meet the upper end of its 2022 copper production guidance of 290,000 mt to 340,000 mt.
Over the past six months, the company said the Phase 1 plant has consistently exceeded design ore throughput by approximately 10%-15%. The Phase 2 concentrator plant has also consistently exceeded its design throughput capacity over the first 17 days of production and continues to perform at similar throughput and recovery rates as the Phase 1 concentrator.
Kamoa Copper’s previously announced debottlenecking program is progressing on schedule. The program will see Kamoa Copper increase the combined design processing capacity of the Phase 1 and Phase 2 concentrator plants by approximately 21% to 9.2 million mt/y, up from 7.6 million mt/y. By the second quarter of 2023, the debottlenecking program will have increased copper output from Kamoa Copper’s two phases to more than 450,000 mt/y, positioning Kamoa Copper as the world’s fourth largest copper producer.
“Our project team’s focus now will be firmly on Phase 3 execution,” Farren said. “We intend to deliver the Phase 3 project once again on time, and on budget. We are proud of what our people have achieved in a very short space of time — and are equally determined to reach the next milestones along a similar trajectory.”
The Phase 3 expansion is on track, with detailed design, budgeting and engineering well advanced. The prefeasibility study for Phase 3 is expected to be announced during the third quarter of this year.
First copper production from Phase 3 is expected in the fourth quarter of 2024.
