Canada’s Ivanhoe set to explore for Angolan copper

Ivanhoe Mines has secured prospecting rights to explore for copper across an area of Angola half the size of Switzerland, the Canadian company announced on Monday.

The concession covers 22,195 square kilometres of land in the provinces of Cuando Cubango and Moxico, the latter of which is traversed by the Lobito Railway Corridor, a developing logistics link aimed at moving minerals needed in electric vehicles, including copper, from inland Africa to Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito.

The deal was signed with the Angolan National Agency for Mineral Resources at the 2023 Angolan Mining Conference held in Luanda last Thursday and Friday.

“Ivanhoe has an exceptional record of discovering tier-one deposits in new frontiers,” co-chairperson Robert Friedland said. “We are now commencing exploration activities in the underexplored regions of Angola that we believe could host an extension of the Central African Copperbelt.”