Modern Mining July 2016

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8MODERN MINING July 2016
MINING News
Botswana to host major kimberlite conference
The 11th I nternational K imberlite
Conference (11 IKC) is to be held at the
Gaborone International Convention Centre
in Botswana from 18-22 September 2017.
International Kimberlite Conferences (IKCs)
are special events which take place every
four to five years, with the first IKC hav-
ing being held in Cape Town in 1973. The
11 IKC will be the first IKC to be hosted by
Botswana.
According to the organisers, the location
of the 11 IKC is particularly appropriate as
Botswana is currently the largest diamond
producer by value worldwide and 2017 is
the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the
first economic diamondiferous kimberlite in
the country, now the Orapa mine. This anni-
versary will be celebrated under the banner
of ‘50 Years of Diamonds in Botswana’.
The objective of this conference is to
bring together geoscientists from both the
academic and exploration/mining commu-
nities to share their knowledge, stimulate
scientific debate and to further the under-
standing of the geology of kimberlites,
diamonds and related subjects. The confer-
ence will include oral and poster technical
sessions as well as field trips in Botswana
and neighbouring countries.
The 11 IKC technical sessions will cover
six conference scientific themes, each with
a keynote, which reflect current and future
academic and industrial interest in kimber-
lites and diamonds.
Together, the 11 IKC field trips offer the
opportunity to visit all of the diamond
mines in Southern Africa, both primary
and secondary deposits. These include the
first diamond mines discovered in each of
the five diamond-producing countries in
the region (Orapa, Botswana; Kimberley,
South Africa; Letseng, Lesotho; Murowa,
Zimbabwe; and Elizabeth Bay, Namibia).
Unique to this conference, delegates can
visit the rough diamond sorting facilities at
the Diamond Trading Company Botswana
and De Beers Global Sightholder Sales in
Gaborone.
Full details are available from website

Robert Friedland, Executive Chairman of
TSX-listed Ivanhoe Mines, and Lars-Eric
Johansson, CEO, have announced initial
metallurgical test results from a sample
of drill core from ongoing exploration in
the Kakula Discovery zone, in a southerly
portion of the Kamoa copper project in
the DRC.
The tests achieved copper recoveries of
86 % and produced a copper concentrate
with an extremely high grade of 53 % cop-
per. The results also indicate that material
from Kamoa’s Kakula and Kansoko zones
could be processed through the same
concentrator plant, which would yield
significant operational and economic
efficiencies.
The Kamoa project, located approxi-
mately 25 km west of the town of Kolwezi
in Katanga Province, is a joint ven-
ture between Ivanhoe Mines and Zijin
Mining Group Co, Ltd. The 60- km2 Kakula
Discovery zone is on the Kamoa mining
licence, approximately 10 km south-west
of the Kamoa project’s planned initial min-
ing area at Kansoko Sud.
Testing of the Kakula sample was con-
ducted at Zijin’s laboratory in China, using
the flowsheet developed during the Kamoa
Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS). The material
testedwas a composite of drill holes DD996
and DD998, assaying 4,1 % copper. As a
comparison, testing of a previous develop-
ment composite sample from the planned,
initial mining deposit at Kamoa’s Kansoko
Sud zone and the adjacent Kansoko
Centrale zone, assaying 3,61 % copper,
achieved an 85 % recovery and a concen-
trate grade of 37 % copper. The PFS circuit
was optimised on this material.
Mineralogy on the Kakula sample of
drill core confirmed that the material is
chalcocite dominant, with lesser amounts
of bornite.
“These preliminary Kakula metallurgi-
cal test results are positive as they indicate
that the metallurgy at Kakula is very similar
to that at Kansoko Sud and Centrale, and
that mineralisation from these three areas
can be successfully processed through the
same concentrator plant,” said Vongani
Nkuna, Kamoa’s Senior Process Engineer.
“The next steps are to repeat and con-
firm the Kakula metallurgical results by
running duplicate tests at Zijin’s labora-
tory and XPS’s laboratory in Canada. After
this, we will look at minor changes to the
planned Kamoa concentrator circuit to fur-
ther improve recoveries. Once we have a
resource model for the Kakula area, we will
plan a rigorous sample selection and test
work campaign.”
The primary objective of the cur-
rent drilling programme at the Kakula
Discovery is to confirm and expand a thick,
flat-lying, bottom-loaded zone of very
high-grade copper mineralisation in the
southern part of the Kakula Discovery area
that has the potential to have a significant,
positive impact on the Kamoa project’s
future development plans. Kakula’s drill-
ing programme has seven rigs operational
in the field and two rigs on standby. The
planned 25 000 m of drilling is scheduled
to be completed later this year. 
One of the drills in operation at the Kakula Discovery area, approximately 10 km south-west of the
boxcut and initial mining area at Kansoko Sud (photo: Ivanhoe Mines).
Tests on Kakula ore sample deliver positive results