This DRC Copper Discovery May Reshape Ivanhoe Mines

Founder and executive co-chairman of Toronto-listed Ivanhoe Mines, a leader in the mining and precious metals industry, Robert Friedland, has spent decades chasing the kind of mineral discovery that can transform a mining company. His latest prize may be taking shape in the copper belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo, only a short distance from the mine that has already made Ivanhoe Mines one of the country’s most important copper producers.

Ivanhoe said this week that drilling had increased the estimated amount of copper in its Makoko district by 30%, to about 12 million metric tons of contained copper. The company now has 42 million metric tons of indicated mineral resources grading 2.66% copper, alongside 612 million metric tons of inferred resources grading 1.80%.

Those figures do not mean that 12 million tons of copper can immediately be mined or sold. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves, and a substantial portion of Makoko remains in the less certain inferred category. Ivanhoe has not yet completed a feasibility study or established a production schedule. But the scale and grade of the discovery have put Makoko among the most significant undeveloped copper systems found in recent years.

The question for Ivanhoe is whether Makoko can become more than an impressive geological discovery. If the company can convert enough of the resource into economically mineable reserves, the deposit could give Ivanhoe a second large-scale copper operation in the same region as Kamoa-Kakula, potentially allowing it to share infrastructure, processing expertise and logistics with an established mining complex.

That possibility matters because the copper industry is confronting a problem that cannot easily be solved by higher prices alone: there are not enough new, large deposits advancing toward production quickly enough.

The International Energy Agency estimates that under its stated-policies scenario, copper demand will rise from about 26.7 million metric tons in 2024 to 31.3 million tons in 2030. It says the pipeline of announced projects could leave the industry facing a 30% supply shortfall by 2035.

Copper is indispensable to electricity networks, electric vehicles, renewable-energy equipment and data centers. The IEA estimates that cleantech demand for copper will rise from 7.7 million tons in 2024 to 10.9 million tons in 2030 under its stated-policies scenario.

The scarcity is also geological. S&P Global’s latest analysis of major copper discoveries found 263 deposits discovered between 1990 and 2025, containing 1.4 billion metric tons of copper in resources, reserves and past production. But the rate of new major discoveries has slowed, with mining companies increasingly concentrating exploration spending around existing operations rather than pursuing entirely new districts.

Makoko is unusual not only for its size but for its grade. The indicated resource of 42 million metric tons of ore grading 2.66% copper represents roughly 1.1 million tons of contained copper in that category alone. The inferred resource adds another 11 million tons of contained copper, although its lower geological confidence means it cannot simply be treated as future production.

For comparison, S&P Global says copper ore grades at major mines have been declining over time. In South America, the weighted average head grade fell 44% between 2000 and 2024, to about 0.7%.

That makes a deposit grading above 2% potentially attractive. Higher grades generally mean that more copper can be recovered from each ton of ore, reducing the amount of rock that has to be mined and processed for a given quantity of metal.

Makoko also has another advantage that is difficult to reproduce: location.

The deposit sits within Ivanhoe’s 2,426-square-kilometre Western Forelands exploration project, immediately adjacent to Kamoa-Kakula. The Western Forelands licence area is more than six times the size of the Kamoa-Kakula mining complex. Mineralization at Makoko has expanded to a strike length of 16 kilometres, while its total combined area has reached 61 square kilometres.

Ivanhoe already knows how to build and operate a large copper operation in the area.

Kamoa-Kakula, a joint venture involving Ivanhoe, China’s Zijin Mining and the Congolese government, produced 388,838 metric tons of copper in concentrate in 2025. The operation has also begun producing copper anodes at its on-site smelter.

The DRC itself produced about 2.99 million metric tons of mined copper in 2024, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Ivanhoe and Zijin’s Kamoa-Kakula produced 437,061 tons that year, making it one of the country’s largest individual copper operations.

Makoko could therefore benefit from something that many greenfield copper projects lack: an existing mining ecosystem.

Ivanhoe says its development concept for Makoko is expected to include multiple shallow open pits, potentially allowing the project to be developed faster and with lower capital requirements than a conventional deep underground mine. The company plans to begin a scoping study in the first quarter of 2027.

But that is where the distinction between geological potential and commercial value becomes important.

More than half of the estimated copper at Makoko is currently classified as inferred. Ivanhoe plans an additional 120,000 meters of infill drilling, with the aim of converting roughly 30% to 40% of the inferred copper into the indicated category. The company expects that drilling to continue through 2027.

The company has also used a mineable-shape optimization method in the latest resource estimate, an important change from its previous approach. The technique attempts to constrain the resource according to practical mining geometries rather than simply counting mineralized blocks above a cutoff grade.

That makes the latest estimate more useful as a guide to potential mining, but it does not eliminate the risks involved in building a mine.

Ivanhoe still has to demonstrate that Makoko can be mined economically, establish reserves, complete environmental and social assessments, secure approvals, finance construction and manage the infrastructure and operational challenges that have affected mining projects across the Congo.

Ivanhoe’s own recent experience provides a reminder. Kamoa-Kakula suffered a major disruption after seismic activity at the Kakula mine in 2025, forcing the company to revise its production expectations. The complex subsequently produced 388,838 tons in 2025, below the 520,000 to 580,000 tons initially targeted before the disruption.

The company expects Kamoa-Kakula to produce between 380,000 and 420,000 tons in 2026 and between 500,000 and 540,000 tons in 2027 as recovery work progresses.

Makoko therefore arrives at an interesting moment for Ivanhoe. The company is simultaneously trying to restore and expand production at Kamoa-Kakula while developing a potentially enormous new resource next door.

There is also a geopolitical dimension. The Congo is seeking to capture more value from its mineral wealth by increasing domestic processing. In August, the government banned exports of copper and cobalt concentrates, although exemptions have been granted, including to Ivanhoe’s operations. Kamoa-Kakula’s copper is already processed partly at its own smelter in the Congo.

That local processing capacity could become an advantage if Makoko eventually reaches production. Ivanhoe would not be starting from scratch in building a supply chain from mine to market. Yet the biggest prize may be larger than Makoko itself.

Ivanhoe says its geologists have now identified more than 55 million metric tons of contained copper across the Western Forelands, including Kamoa-Kakula, Makoko and Kiala.

The significance is that Ivanhoe is not merely adding another deposit to its portfolio. It is delineating an entire copper district.

S&P Global’s research suggests that Africa has become an increasingly important destination for copper discoveries, with the DRC’s Western Forelands among the most important new copper regions identified in recent years. But it also warns that major new discoveries remain scarce and that bringing them into production is becoming increasingly difficult.

That is the real test for Friedland. The 30% increase in Makoko’s resource is impressive, but it is not yet a new mine. The more consequential question is whether Ivanhoe can replicate at Makoko what it achieved at Kamoa-Kakula: move from geological discovery to large-scale production while taking advantage of the infrastructure, knowledge and processing capacity already established in the region.

If it can, Makoko could become a second pillar of Ivanhoe’s copper business and extend the productive life of the company’s Congolese operations for decades.

If the drilling ultimately converts much of the inferred resource into economically viable reserves, the value of the discovery could rise substantially.

For now, however, Makoko is still a bet on geology, execution and time.

Nadine Gordimer

Biggest Selling Title: Burger’s Daughter
Short Bio: A South African writer and political activist, Gordimer received the Nobel Prize in Literature for her work that explores the complexities of life during apartheid in South Africa.

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