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(Kitco News) - Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) today reported that Kamoa-Kakula produced 93,603 tonnes of copper in Q1 2023, including a record 34,915 tonnes of copper in March 2023, following the completion of the debottlenecking program in late February 2023, ahead of schedule and on-budget.
The company said that Kamoa-Kakula's Phase 3 expansion is on track for Q4 2024; boosting copper production to a ten-year average of 620,000 tonnes per annum, at C1 cash cost of $1.22/lb.
Ivanhoe Mines noted it recorded a profit of $82 million for Q1 2023, compared to a profit of $22 million for the same period in 2022, adding that the profit in the quarter is net of a $31 million non-cash loss on the fair value adjustment of the embedded derivative financial liability of the convertible bond, resulting predominantly from a 14% increase in the share price at quarter end.
According to a press release, the profit includes Ivanhoe Mines' share of profit and finance income from the Kamoa-Kakula joint venture of $130 million for Q1 2023.
Adjusted Q1 2023 EBITDA for the Ivanhoe Mines group was $168 million, compared to $145 million for the same period in 2022, and $162 million for Q4 2022, which includes an attributable share of EBITDA from Kamoa-Kakula.
Ivanhoe Mines said it has a strong balance sheet with cash and cash equivalents of $497 million on hand as at March 31, 2023, and expects Kamoa-Kakula's Phase 1 and Phase 2 cash flow to be sufficient to fund the Phase 3 expansion capital cost requirements at current copper prices.
Ivanhoe Mines is a Canadian mining company that is advancing its four principal mining and exploration projects in Southern Africa: the Phase 3 expansion of the Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that commenced commercial operations in July 2021; the construction of the Platreef palladium, nickel, platinum, rhodium, copper and gold project in South Africa, scheduled for first production in the third quarter of 2024; the restart of the historic Kipushi zinc-copper-lead-germanium mine in the DRC, also scheduled for first production in the third quarter of 2024; and the exploration for new copper discoveries on Ivanhoe's 2,407-square-kilometre Western Foreland exploration project, which is adjacent to Kamoa-Kakula.
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