Ivanhoe Mines Reports Tuesday on a 76,401-Tonne Copper Quarter

The tonnes are already counted. On October 8, 2026, Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. reported that its Kamoa-Kakula complex in the Democratic Republic of Congo produced 76,401 tonnes of copper in the third quarter, and that its Kipushi zinc mine had its best quarter yet. What the company has not yet published is the money side of that quarter.

That comes after the market closes on Tuesday, November 3. Ivanhoe set the date in a release on October 27 and scheduled its investor call for 10:30 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, November 4. The financial statements will show what those tonnes sold for, what they cost to make and where the balance sheet stood on September 30.

Three mines, at three different stages

Ivanhoe is a Vancouver-based miner with three operations in southern Africa, each at a different point in its life.

Kamoa-Kakula, in the DRC's Lualaba province, is the large copper complex Ivanhoe runs with Zijin Mining and the DRC government. It is the company's earnings engine. Ivanhoe accounts for it as a joint venture, so its revenue does not appear in Ivanhoe's own consolidated revenue line; Ivanhoe books its share of the profit instead.

Kipushi is a zinc mine, also in the DRC, restarted in 2024. It sits inside Ivanhoe's consolidated figures.

Platreef, in South Africa, is a platinum-group metals and nickel mine still building toward commercial production. Its first ore came up through Shaft #3 on April 1, 2026.

The plan that ties the three together is growth at Kamoa-Kakula. In its March 31 update the company said it expects annualised anode production of over 500,000 tonnes from 2028, at a C1 cash cost of about US$2.00 a pound. It added that the resource supports a possible fourth expansion phase, on which no decision has been taken. The third-quarter statements are one dated step along that path, and the call is where management will speak to the rest of it.

How the copper guidance moved this year

Kamoa-Kakula's 2026 forecast has been reset once and tightened once, and that history frames Tuesday's numbers.

In January the company guided to 380,000 to 420,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate. On March 31, after an updated independent study for the complex, it cut that to 290,000 to 330,000 tonnes in anode and blister copper. Anode is the near-pure copper plate a smelter casts; the change in unit came with the on-site smelter taking over most of the output. The same update moved the 2026 cash-cost guidance to US$2.60 to US$3.00 a pound. On July 29 the company narrowed the range to 290,000 to 310,000 tonnes.

The October 8 release kept that range and said production is "trending towards the lower end of guidance."

Reaching the bottom of the range takes about 77,900 tonnes in the fourth quarter. The third quarter came in at 76,401. Maple's October 22 piece put the fourth-quarter requirement at about 78,000 tonnes on the same figures, and nothing in the record since has changed that sum.

What the second quarter already showed

The second-quarter results, released on July 29, are the last full financial picture and the base the third quarter will be read against.

In the three months to June 30, 2026, Kamoa-Kakula's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation were US$385 million at 100 per cent, on revenue of US$880 million, a 44 per cent margin. Its cash cost, called C1, ran at US$2.84 a pound, up from US$2.58 in the first quarter and inside the year's guidance. C1 is the direct cost of producing a pound of copper, before sustaining capital, royalties and corporate costs. The realised copper price was US$5.99 a pound.

Ivanhoe's own adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was US$179 million. Kipushi contributed US$51 million of EBITDA on US$146 million of revenue in the quarter to June 30, 2026.

The balance sheet in the June 30, 2026 interim statements showed US$635.3 million in cash and cash equivalents. Against it sat US$524.6 million of borrowings and US$761.0 million of senior notes. Ivanhoe reports in US dollars, while its shares trade in Canadian dollars in Toronto.

The quarter also carried interruptions. The Lualaba Copper Smelter, a third-party plant that treats part of Kamoa-Kakula's concentrate, was shut for 56 days in the second quarter and resumed normal operations on July 1. Industrial action in July cost nine days at Kakula and seven at Kamoa. After the quarter ended, a worker died in an underground incident at Kakula, the company reported.

Where the third quarter differs

The production release points to three changes the financial statements will put prices on.

Copper output rose 19 per cent from the second quarter, to 76,401 tonnes. Of that, 61,506 tonnes was anode from the on-site smelter, which ran at about 60 per cent of its 500,000-tonne annual design capacity. The company has said further ramp-up beyond 60 per cent "is currently constrained by concentrate feed," and it expects full capacity in 2028.

Kipushi produced 77,147 tonnes of zinc in concentrate, a record and 10 per cent more than in the second quarter. The company said it was on track for the upper end of its 2026 range of 240,000 to 290,000 tonnes. At June 30 it also held about 44,000 tonnes of unsold zinc and about 40,000 tonnes of unsold copper at Kamoa-Kakula, and it planned to sell down the zinc stock in the second half.

The copper price moved in the company's favour. The London Metal Exchange cash settlement was US$14,449 a tonne on October 30, 2026, as republished by Westmetall, about US$6.55 a pound. The realised price for the third quarter will depend on when cargoes were priced, and the results will state it.

Platreef milled 99,391 tonnes in the third quarter before commercial production, which the company expects in the fourth quarter of 2026.

The shares, and a name in the news

Ivanhoe closed at C$9.00 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on November 2, 2026, down 0.44 per cent on 3,451,395 shares, per end-of-day data read on TMX Money at 18:40 ET. The 52-week low on the same page is C$8.88 and the high C$20.34. The 1,426,460,924 shares the page lists put the market value at about C$12.8 billion.

Some of the week's discussion of Ivanhoe concerned another company. Robert Friedland, Ivanhoe's executive co-chairman, is also chairman of Sunrise Energy Metals, the Australian company developing the Syerston scandium project in New South Wales, according to Sunrise's ASX announcement of August 10, 2026. Ivanhoe Mines holds a 2.5 per cent royalty on Syerston, according to Sunrise's ASX announcement of March 3, 2026. Ivanhoe itself has published nothing on Sunrise in its own releases this quarter.

After Tuesday

Two dates are fixed: the results after the close on November 3 and the call at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on November 4. Marna Cloete is Ivanhoe's president and chief executive, per the October 8 release.

Beyond them sit the milestones the company has already dated. Platreef's first phase is expected to reach commercial production in the fourth quarter. The Kansoko Sud ore access at Kamoa is expected in the first quarter of 2027, and an updated life-of-mine plan for the complex is due late in that quarter. The smelter's path to full capacity runs to 2028.

The third quarter's 76,401 tonnes were the complex's best of the year, and the coming statements will set them against costs and prices that have both moved since July.