Kipoi Overview

The Kipoi Copper Project is operated by SEK (Société d’Exploitation de Kipoi), a 95%-owned subsidiary of Tiger, and located 75km northwest of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga Province, in the central part of the Katanga Copper Belt. The Kipoi Mining Licence covers an area of 55sq km and contains a 12km-long extensively copper-cobalt mineralised segment (ecaille) of Upper Roan (R2, R4) sediments. The project hosts five known copper deposits: Kipoi Central, Kipoi North, Kileba, Judeira and Kaminafitwe. 

As of December 2014, mineral resources for the Kipoi Copper Project were 938,000 tonnes of copper.

Tiger has adopted a staged development approach at the Kipoi Project. The high-grade zone of copper mineralisation at Kipoi Central was exploited during the Stage 1 development, in which a heavy media separation (HMS) plant was in operation from 2011 to late 2014.

Tiger commenced copper cathode production at Kipoi in May 2014 as Stage 2 of operations. Its Solvent Extraction Electrowinning plant is expected to produce 23,000 tonnes this year. The company plans to increase this to 32,500tpa in the future. 

It is envisaged that ore from Kipoi Central, Kipoi North and Kileba and other deposits within the Kipoi Project, as well as the nearby Lupoto Project, will be processed during the Stage 2 phase.

The project is located close to Lubumbashi, which has an international airport and is linked by a network of roads to the major ports of Dares Salaam in Tanzania and Durban in South Africa.

Local infrastructure is excellent. High-voltage power lines off the national grid and the Lubumbashi-Likasi railway line pass through the project area.