Two of the Three Cost Figures Circulating About Ivanhoe Mines Are Not in Its Filings

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. has published nothing since 8 September 2026, when it reported a larger copper discovery in the Western Forelands. Its third quarter does not close until 30 September. In the absence of a document, the cost figures being repeated around the shares have come from recollections of a conference call, and three of them can be checked against what the company has actually filed.

One is exact. Two are not.

The figure that checks out, and the two that do not

Kamoa-Kakula's C1 cash cost in the second quarter of 2026 was US$2.84 per pound of payable copper. That is Ivanhoe's own figure, published with its second-quarter results on 29 July 2026, and the number being quoted is correct to the cent.

The claim that it then rose to about US$3.34 a pound is not a company figure. No Ivanhoe disclosure carries that number, in any quarter, in guidance or in outlook. The direction being described is also not the disclosed one. The company reported C1 of US$2.58 a pound in the first quarter of 2026 and US$2.84 in the second, and there is no later quarter to compare.

There is an arithmetic route to something near US$3.34, and it is worth naming so the figure can be placed. Ivanhoe reported first-half 2026 C1 of US$2.70 a pound and guides the full year at US$2.60 to US$3.00. If the year landed at the top of that range on roughly equal half-year volumes, the implied second half sits near US$3.30. That is a calculation somebody performed, not a number Ivanhoe published, and because the company plans materially higher volumes in the second half, the implied second-half figure would be lower than that, not higher.

The realised copper price arc does not survive at either end. The claim describes a move from about US$4.86 a pound to over US$6.00. Ivanhoe reported a realised price of US$5.79 a pound in the first quarter of 2026 and US$5.99 in the second. US$5.99 is not over US$6.00, and US$4.86 matches no disclosed period. The nearest figures the company has published are US$4.98 for the fourth quarter of 2025 and US$4.40 for the 2025 full year.

The third claim, that 2026 C1 guidance runs at roughly US$2.60 to US$3.00 a pound, is accurate as the current guidance. It omits the more interesting half of the fact, which is that the range was raised.

Ivanhoe does not publish an all-in sustaining cost

This is the distinction the argument needs and does not have.

Ivanhoe reports C1 cash cost. Its own footnote defines it as a non-GAAP measure covering all direct mining, processing, and general and administrative costs. It does not include sustaining capital, royalties or reclamation. All-in sustaining cost, the measure most gold and several base-metal producers report, does include those things. Ivanhoe does not publish an all-in sustaining cost figure at all. The term appears nowhere in its first-quarter or second-quarter 2026 results.

So a comparison of Kamoa-Kakula's C1 against another producer's all-in sustaining cost is a comparison of a narrower measure with a wider one, and the narrower one will win every time by construction. Whether Ivanhoe's costs are rising or falling is a real question. It cannot be settled with two numbers that are not built the same way.

What C1 leaves out, priced from Ivanhoe's own guidance

The gap is not unknowable. Ivanhoe guides 2026 capital expenditure at Kamoa-Kakula of US$1,100 million to US$1,400 million, split between expansion capital of US$600 million to US$850 million and sustaining capital of US$500 million to US$550 million. Sustaining capital is the part C1 excludes and an all-in measure would include.

Take the midpoint of the sustaining range, US$525 million, against the midpoint of current production guidance, 300,000 tonnes of contained copper in anode or blister. Three hundred thousand tonnes is about 661.4 million pounds. That works out to roughly US$0.79 a pound of sustaining capital sitting outside the C1 figure.

Two qualifications belong beside that number rather than after it. C1 is quoted per pound of payable copper, while production guidance is stated in contained copper, and payable is the smaller of the two, so the true per-pound figure is a little higher than US$0.79. And sustaining capital is not the only thing an all-in sustaining cost picks up; royalties, corporate overhead and reclamation sit outside C1 as well.

On that basis, the midpoint of Ivanhoe's C1 guidance, US$2.80 a pound, corresponds to something above US$3.59 a pound on a sustaining basis. That is our arithmetic on Ivanhoe's disclosed inputs, not a company figure and not an all-in sustaining cost as any peer defines it. It is close enough to indicate the size of what the headline measure is leaving out.

Sulphuric acid moves C1 in the direction nobody has been arguing

There is a cost input at Kamoa-Kakula that is not a cost at all.

The complex produces high-strength sulphuric acid and sells it, so the acid price enters C1 as a by-product credit. A higher acid price lowers the reported cash cost per pound. Ivanhoe reported selling 119,603 tonnes of acid at an average of US$465 a tonne in the second quarter of 2026, at a production rate of about 1,250 tonnes a day. In the first quarter it noted new contract prices up more than half year-to-date at US$725 a tonne. With the second quarter results it said July and August offtake contracts were expected to average approximately US$840 a tonne.

Ivanhoe's 2026 C1 guidance was built on an assumed acid realisation of US$400 to US$500 a tonne. Realised prices have been running well above that assumption. That is a tailwind to the second-half cash cost, and it cuts directly against the case for escalation being made around the shares. Diesel runs the other way, and the company flagged in the first quarter that sustained elevated acid and diesel prices could move C1 five per cent from the initial estimate. By the second quarter it described the diesel impact as well contained.

The guidance was cut in March, and the basis changed with it

The larger fact in Ivanhoe's 2026 record is not a cost figure at all.

On 18 February 2026 the company issued its first 2026 C1 guidance of US$2.20 to US$2.50 a pound, alongside production guidance of 380,000 to 420,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate. On 31 March 2026, with an updated independent study, it cut 2026 production guidance to 290,000 to 330,000 tonnes and raised C1 guidance to US$2.60 to US$3.00. The cost range rose by roughly a fifth in six weeks.

It also changed what the tonnes mean. Guidance from 2026 is reported as contained tonnes of copper in anode or blister, where it was previously copper in concentrate. Those two are not directly comparable, and anyone setting 290,000 against 380,000 without adjusting is overstating the cut.

Ivanhoe gave the reason in its own words: a longer period of up-front development to support a more sustainable future rate, target development rates reduced by approximately 15 per cent, and adverse geotechnical and hydrological conditions. Stoping at Kamoa was guided to begin in the second half of 2026 and at Kakula in the first half of 2027, a date the second-quarter release moved to the second half of 2027. On 29 July 2026 the top of the production range was trimmed again, to 290,000 to 310,000 tonnes.

Two operating facts sit underneath that. The 500,000 tonne-a-year smelter, which started up on 1 December 2025, has run at approximately 60 per cent of capacity since mid-February 2026. And the complex still draws on a mixed power supply, with grid hydro from the Inga II refurbishment alongside power imported from Zambia and Mozambique and on-site backup diesel generation, which the company's June 2026 investor presentation puts at 178 megawatts rising to 214 megawatts from December 2026.

Every figure above is a 100 per cent number, and Ivanhoe owns 39.6 per cent

All Kamoa-Kakula production, cost and realised-price figures are stated on a 100 per cent project basis. Ivanhoe says so directly beneath its tables.

Kamoa Holding owns 80 per cent of Kamoa-Kakula, with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo holding 20 per cent. Ivanhoe and Zijin Mining each hold an indirect 39.6 per cent of Kamoa-Kakula. Ivanhoe accounts for the complex by the equity method rather than consolidating it, which means its own balance sheet does not carry the project's. Corporate cash was US$635 million at 30 June 2026. Consolidated total debt was US$1.225 billion at 31 March 2026, while total debt on a pro-rata basis, which brings in Ivanhoe's share of the joint venture, was US$2,113.9 million at the same date.

Both the equity and part of the debt have German lines. The shares trade in Frankfurt under the symbol IYAA, WKN A1W4VG, ISIN CA46579R1047, in euros, confirmed on Deutsche Börse's instrument page read on 24 September 2026. Ivanhoe's US$750 million 7.875 per cent senior unsecured notes due 2030 are separately listed there under ISIN XS2978907512 and WKN A4D5X1. The shares closed at C$11.90 in Toronto on 24 September 2026, down C$0.29 or 2.4 per cent, on 2.93 million shares against a thirty-day average near 3.9 million, per market data read after the close. That is fifteen-minute delayed secondary market data.

The argument about where Kamoa-Kakula's costs are going will be settled by a document that does not exist yet. The one that does exist says the company raised its cost guidance by a fifth in March, trimmed its production twice, and reports a measure that leaves roughly eighty cents a pound on the other side of the line.

Transparency note. This is an independent due-diligence analysis and editorial opinion piece produced by The Maple Markets editorial desk. It is not sponsored, promoted or commissioned, and no compensation of any kind has been received from Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (TSX: IVN), Zijin Mining Group Company Limited or any party acting on their behalf. The analysis is based on public disclosure available as of the publish date; every figure is attributed to its primary source. The Maple Markets and its authors may hold positions in securities mentioned; nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security, and readers should not treat it as investment advice. Past disclosure does not guarantee future results. Policies: Editorial Standards · Financial Disclaimer.