Mining entrepreneur Robert Friedland has achieved a new milestone in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with the restart of the Kipushi zinc mine by his Ivanhoe Mines group.
This historic mine, which began operations a century ago, had been on care and maintenance for the past 31 years.
The first concentrate from the renewed operations was produced on June 14, and the production guidance for 2024 is set between 100,000 and 140,000 tons of zinc concentrate.
Plans indicate that Kipushi will produce an average of 278,000 tons of zinc concentrate annually during its first five years of operation, positioning it as the fourth-largest zinc mine in the world. Half of the output will be exported through the port of Walvis Bay in Namibia, with the other half going through Durban.
This achievement follows Ivanhoe Mines’ successful development of the Kamoa-Kakula copper mining complex in the DRC, which produced 393,551 tons of copper concentrates in 2023 and aims to reach up to 490,000 tons in 2024.
Friedland has consistently praised the DRC as a premier mining destination, surpassing even the established but aging giant copper mines in South America.
Speaking at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town in 2023, he declared, “The Congo is the best place in the world to go mining.”
As Ivanhoe has expanded its operations in the DRC, the group’s share price on the Toronto Stock Exchange has surged, rising from just C$2.44 per share in March 2020 to around C$19 per share currently, significantly outperforming established mining groups like BHP and Anglo American.
