(Ecofin Agency) - Kamoa Copper recently disclosed its results for the third quarter of 2024. Over the period, it milled 3.3 million tonnes of ore and produced a record 116,313 tonnes of copper concentrate. In September alone, the company produced 40,025 tonnes from its Stage 3 concentrator, which is currently ramping up production. By the end of the quarter, both throughput and recovery rates at the Phase 3 concentrator were stable.

In 2024, Kamoa Copper produced 303,328 tonnes of copper in concentrate, achieving a record daily production rate of 1,334 tonnes over 30 days. Average daily production increased to 1,460 tonnes in the last week of September.

In Q3 3024, Kamoa's Phase 1 and 2 concentrators milled about 2.2 million tonnes of ore at an average copper grade of 4.9%. They produced 94,214 tonnes of copper with an average recovery rate of 86.6%.

The Phase 3 concentrator, which began producing on June 10, milled around 1.1 million tonnes of ore at an average grade of 2.6% copper. Most of the feed came from historical surface stockpiles. The Phase 3 concentrator achieved commercial production during the quarter, producing 22,099 tonnes of copper in concentrate with a recovery rate of 79.9%.

After commissioning the fine grinders for the Phase 3 concentrator in early September, Kamoa Copper has seen improvements in throughput and recovery rates. In the last week of September, the concentrator milled 117,484 tonnes of ore, indicating an annual processing rate of over 5.5 million tonnes for Phase 3. During this period, the copper recovery rate rose to an average of 84%.

The Kamoa operations team expects to achieve a recovery rate above 86% in the fourth quarter, which will help stabilize production. They also plan to increase the feed quality for the Phase 3 concentrator to 3% copper by the first quarter of 2025, while continuing to develop high-grade ore reserves in the Kamoa 1 and Kamoa 2 underground mines.

By the end of the quarter, total backup power generation capacity reached 135 MW after installing an additional 72 MW generator. This backup power is enough to fully supply Phase 1 and Phase 2 concentrators during outages. The goal is to have a total of 201 MW of backup capacity by year-end. Additionally, electricity imported from the Southern African Power Pool via Zambia stood at 65 MW at the end of the quarter, with plans to increase this to over 100 MW by year-end.

The new forecasts for Kamoa Copper reflect the production losses caused by interruptions in the DRC's power grid, especially before the installation of additional generators and agreements to import electricity to address these shortfalls. These forecasts also consider the commissioning of the Phase 3 concentrator, which has been operating at full capacity since the end of the third quarter.

Kamoa Copper's updated production projections for 2024 are based on several assumptions and estimates as of September 30, 2024. These projections are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ significantly.