Kipushi is located within the Central African Copperbelt which constitutes a metallogenic province that hosts numerous world-class copper-cobalt deposits both in the DRC and Zambia. The Central African Copperbelt lies within the Lufilian Arc, which comprises a 5?10 km thick sequence of metasedimentary rocks forming the Katanga Supergroup. These rocks were incorporated into a thin-skinned fold and thrust belt which resulted from the convergence of the Congo and Kalahari cratons. In the DRC, the Katangan Supergroup is defined by the Roan, Nguba and Kundulungu Groups.

The Kipushi Zn-Cu Project is located within Nguba Group rocks on the northern limb of the regional west?north?west trending Kipushi Anticline which straddles the border between Zambia and the DRC. The mineral deposits at Kipushi are an example of carbonate-hosted copper-zinc-lead mineralization hosted in pipe-like fault breccia zones, as well as tabular zones.

Mineralization is focused at the intersection of the Kakontwe and Katete Formations of the Nguba Group with a north?north?east striking 70° west dipping discontinuity known as the Kipushi Fault, which terminates the northern limb of the anticline. The Kipushi Fault has been interpreted by KICO as a syn sedimentary growth fault which was reactivated during the Lufilian Orogeny. Mineralization occurs in several distinct settings known as the Kipushi Fault Zone (copper, zinc and mixed copper-zinc mineralization both as massive sulphides and as veins), the Copper Nord Riche zone (mainly copper but also mixed copper-zinc mineralization, both massive and vein-style), the Série Récurrente zone (disseminated to veinlet-style copper mineralization), and the Big Zinc zone (massive zinc with local copper mineralization).

The planned mining method is a combination of Sublevel Open Stoping (SLOS), Pillar Retreat, and Cut and Fill methods at a steady-state mining rate of 1.1 Mtpa.

The primary mining method for the Big Zinc zone is expected to be SLOS, with cemented rock backfill. The crown pillars are expected to be mined once adjacent stopes are backfilled using the Pillar Retreat mining method. The Big Zinc zone is expected to be accessed via the existing decline and without significant new development. The main levels are planned to be at 60 m vertical intervals with sublevels at 30 m interval.

The Cut and Fill mining method has been identified to be used to extract the copper zone outside of the Big Zinc zone. In this method, mining occurs in horizontal slices, with the blasted copper material removed from the stopes, then crushed underground and sold at the mine gate.

The planned process plant is a dense media separation (DMS) plant, which is expected to include crushing, screening, heavy liquid separation (HLS) and spirals to produce a high grade zinc concentrate. DMS is a simple density concentration technique that preliminary testwork has shown yields positive results for the Kipushi material, which has a sufficient density differential between the gangue (predominantly dolomite) and mineralisation (sphalerite). DMS washability profiles were evaluated in the laboratory at three feed crush sizes using a combination of HLS and shaking tables.

Preliminary test work results on three crush sizes indicated that –20 mm crush size resulted in the highest recovery and concentrate grade. This crush size achieved an overall recovery of 95.4% at a concentrate grade of 55.5% Zn.