FEATURED MINING COMPANY

FIRTST QUANTUM MINERALS LTD

ZAMBIA

THE KANSANSHI MINE, the world’s 8th largest copper mine, is 80% owned by Kansanshi Mining PLC, a First Quantum subsidiary. The remaining 20% is owned by a subsidiary of ZCCM. The mine is located approximately 10 kilometres north of the town of Solwezi and180 kilometres to the northwest of the Copperbelt town of Chingola.

The deposit at Kansanshi occurs within a broad, northwest trending, northwest closing antiform, which can be traced for approximately 12 kilometres. Kansanshi is a vein deposit developed within a tectonised rock sequence and, as such, constitutes a major mineralization control. The main veins and vein swarms dip subvertically, perpendicular to the fold axes, in the plane of maximum extension. A major north-south trending and well mineralized zone of complicated faulting, abundant vein injection, breccia development and down-dropped rock units lie within the area delineated by Kansanshi’s mining license.

Copper mineralization at Kansanshi occurs as vein-specific mineralization within and immediately adjacent to mesoscopic veins; as stratiform or concordant mineralization in thin bands and veinlets parallel to bedding/foliation; and as disseminated mineralization associated with albite-carbonate alteration. Brecciated zones may also be mineralized, but usually only within oxidized and supergene enrichment horizons, which display a complicated spatial distribution of secondary copper minerals.

THE GUELB MOGHREIN MINE is owned 100% by Mauritanian Copper Mines (MCM), a First Quantum subsidiary. The mine is located 250 kilometres northeast of the nation’s capital, Nouakchott, near the town of Akjoujt.

The Occidental deposit at Guelb Moghrein is considered to be an example of the Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) type deposit that, in terms of its structure and mineralogy, has common features with other IOCG deposits elsewhere in the world.

The mineralization is predominantly hosted by ferromagnesian carbonates (FMC). The copper-gold mineralization is hosted primarily within chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite. Magnetite becomes abundant outside the sulphide rich zones of the FMC. The Occidental deposit extends approximately 600 meters along strike and dips to the southwest at 30º to 40º. The eastern and western flanks of the Occidental deposit are fault bounded and the deposit is open at depth.

Mining at Guelb Moghrein is carried out in a single open pit using hydraulic excavators and mechanical drive haul trucks. Sulphide ore is treated in the
processing plant at Guelb Moghrein to produce a copper-gold concentrate from the copper flotation circuit and doré bullion from the gold flotation/CIL circuit.