Taken from part of the Kamoa-Kakula project currently under development in the Democratic Republic of Congo and using a 2% cut-off grade, the intersection from 209m depth shows the highest grade yet drilled at the project.

Niton XRF readings can't be considered as reliable as laboratory assays but Ivanhoe said based on more than 1,570 holes drilled to date at Kamoa-Kakula, and the high degree of correlation between Niton XRF readings and prior assay results, the company was confident the readings were "highly useful" in shaping the next phase of delineation drilling.

Drilling has extended the strike length of the Kamoa North Bonanza zone to at least 550m, with a width of up to 60m across strike. Six drill rigs are defining, or extending, the limits of the Kamoa North Bonanza zone, which has an implied strike length of 2.72km.

The Kamoa North Bonzanza zone represented a new style of copper mineralisation at the project, where massive to semi-massive chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite had locally replaced pyrite in the Kamoa Pyritic Siltstone - a pyritic siltstone immediately above the basal diamictite unit that typically hosted the copper mineralisation at Kamoa-Kakula, the company said.

Kamoa-Kakula project geology manager David Edwards said while the company looked forward to posting an initial resource estimate for Kamoa North Bonanza, it was also keen to leverage its proprietary exploration knowledge to search for the next bonanza-grade copper discovery at Kamoa-Kakula and adjacent Western Foreland.

Kamoa-Kakula is about 25km west of the mining centre of Kolwezi in the DRC. Ivanhoe retains a 39.6% stake in the project, alongside 39.6%-partner Zijin Mining Group, Crystal River Global (0.8%) and the DRC government (20%).