Skip to main content

Katanga Mining completes WOL plant commissioning at KCC's mine

 

Published by
Global Mining Review,

Katanga Mining Ltd has successfully completed the hot commissioning of the core of the first train of its new whole ore leach (WOL) processing facility at its subsidiary Kamoto Copper company’s (KCC) copper and cobalt mine in Lualaba Province, DRC.

The Luilu site where the WOL and electro-winning plants of KCC are located, successfully produced its first copper cathode on 11 December 2017.

Copper and cobalt production at KCC has been suspended since September 2015 pending the construction of the WOL project. A progressive ramp-up and commissioning of the remainder of the first train is expected to follow over the ensuing three months, with the objective of achieving full capacity on the first train by the end of 1Q18.

Johnny Blizzard, CEO of Katanga, commented: “We are very pleased to have met our anticipated budget and timetable for commissioning the first train of our new plant and are optimistic that the tangible improvements from using a whole ore leach processing circuit will be seen in the near future. We look forward to ramping up to full production capacity of the first train. The construction of the second train of the WOL plant is also on schedule and budget and hot commissioning is still expected to commence in H2 2018.”