Highlights included 15.5m at 13.8% copper from the Bonanza Zone, and 6.46m at 9.37% copper at Kamoa Far North.

The drilling is on Ivanhoe's 100%-owned Western Foreland licences, immediately north of the large-scale, fully-funded Kamoa-Kakula joint venture mine, which is under construction.
 
Ivanhoe said the Kamoa North Bonanza Zone represented a new style of copper mineralisation, hosted in Kamoa Pyritic Siltstone (KPS), and it opened the door to multiple exploration opportunities at both Kamoa-Kakula and Western Foreland.

"Given the shallow depth of the Kamoa North mineralisation and the remarkable copper grades and thicknesses encountered to date, Kamoa-Kakula's engineering team already is working on conceptual development plans to access the ultra-high-grade mineralisation," co-chairman Robert Friedland said.

Ivanhoe said construction for the stage one, 6 million tonne per annum Kakula mine was progressing well and the first underground access drives were close to intersecting the initial, high-grade ore.

Shares in the Africa-focused developer jumped back above the C$4 mark a month ago for the first time in about 18 months, peaking at $4.54 on July 4.

They closed up 3.18% yesterday or 13c to $4.22, to capitalise Ivanhoe at $4.3 billion (US$3.3 billion).