Workers load copper concentrate for truck shipment to a smelter in Zambia from Tiger Resources’ Kipoi copper pro-ject in
the DRC. (Photo courtesy Tiger Resources)

The Kipoi project is located in the cen-tral part of the Katanga copper belt, 75 km northwest of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga province. Tiger Resources, an Australian company headquartered in West Perth, Western Australia, has a 60% inter-est in the project. The remaining 40% interest is held by La Générale des Carrière et des Mines (Gécamines), a DRC state-controlled company.

Tiger plans to export up to 60% of the annual concentrate production from Kipoi, with a higher proportion of the export sales to occur during the dry season.

Stage 1 of the Kipoi project is exploit-ing the high-grade zone of mineralization at the Kipoi Central deposit. During the three-year operation of Stage, 1.9 million mt/y of 7% copper ore is planned to be processed through the heavy media sepa-ration plant at a recovery rate of 55%, to produce approximately 35,000 mt/y of copper in concentrate.

The Kipoi project covers an area of 55 km 2on a 12-km sequence of mineralized Roan sediments that host at least five known deposits: Kipoi Central, Kipoi North, Kileba, Judeira, and Kaminafitwe. Tiger has reported JORC-compliant resources at Kipoi Central, Kipoi North, and Kileba. The principal deposit is Kipoi Central, which contains a high-grade zone of copper mineralization within a much larger, lower-grade global resource.

A definitive feasibility study is under way for Kipoi Stage 2 production, which will be based on a solvent extraction/elec-trowinning plant that is targeted to come on stream by April 2014.