Ivanhoe shares rally on DRC copper resource update
Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. [IVN-TSX] has announced an updated mineral resource estimate for the Makoko District, within Ivanhoe’s Western Forelands Exploration Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Western Forelands Exploration Project consists of a majority-owned licence package covering 2,426 square kilometres, over six times larger than that of the adjacent Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex. Within the Western Forelands lies the Makoko District, which is a series of genetically related world-class interconnected copper discoveries.
The company said it has increased the sized of the Western Forelands’ copper discovery estimate by 30% as part of an update to its mineral resource estimate. It said the indicated resource at Western Forelands now stands at 42 million tonnes at 2.66% copper. On top of that is an inferred resource of 612 million tonnes at 1.80% copper.
Ivanhoe shares advanced on the news, rising 10.70% or $1.26 to $13.04. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of $20.33 and $9.45.
The company said the 2026 mineral resource for the Makoko District provides an update from an earlier estimate announced on May 14, 2025. Since then, approximately 64,000 metres of diamond drilling has increased the contained copper to approximately 12 million tonnes.
“The Western Forelands discoveries continue to grow explosively… confirming the area as the most important sedimentary-hosted copper basin on our planet…,’’ said Ivanhoe Executive-Co Chairman Robert Friedland. “One might struggle to find a larger copper system that has been discovered in the last 30 years,’’ he said. “Ivanhoe’s world-leading geologists have so far found over 55 million tonnes of copper in the basin ….and they are confident that they will continue to find additional world-class copper systems there for generations to come.”
Friedland went on to say that as the copper resource expands, so does the company’s excitement and confidence. “We plan to intensify our efforts this year by yet again, increasing the size of the in-fill and step-out drilling program,’’ he said. “Our subsequent mineral resource update will include both additional metres and the projected 60,000 metres of drilling from this year’s drill program that were not included in today’s update.’’
The company has said the footprint of the Makoko District has been expanded with mineralization now located within eight kilometres of the Kamoa Kakula West deposit.
The Kamoa-Kakula copper mine is a joint venture between Ivanhoe Mines (39.6%), Zijin Mining Group (39.6%), Crystal River Global Ltd., (0.8%) and the Government of the Democratic Republic (20%). It is a very large, near-surface, flat-lying, stratiform copper deposit with adjacent prospective exploration areas within the Central African Copperbelt, approximately 25 kilometres west of the town of Kolwezi, and about 270 kilometres west of the provincial capital of Lubumbashi.
Ivanhoe is engaged in the staged development of the Platreef platinum-palladium-nickel-gold rhodium-copper mine in South Africa.