Ivanhoe Mines Reports Improved Metallurgical Testwork Results for Planned Initial Mining Area at Its Kamoa Copper Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo

LUBUMBASHI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO--(Marketwired - Sept. 29, 2014) - Robert Friedland, Executive Chairman of Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN), and Lars-Eric Johansson, Chief Executive Officer, today issued a summary of recent metallurgical flotation testwork at the company's Kamoa copper project, near the mining centre of Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of Congo's southern province of Katanga.

Recent bench-scale metallurgical flotation testwork carried out at XPS Consulting and Testwork Services laboratories in Falconbridge, Ontario, Canada, has shown positive preliminary results. The work was conducted on a composite sample of drill core from the Kansoko Sud and Kansoko Centrale areas in the southern part of the Kamoa resource area. The sample is representative of the first four to five years of planned Kamoa mine production, when Ivanhoe Mines intends to produce and sell a clean, high-grade copper flotation concentrate.

Highlights:

• Copper recoveries of 88.3%.
• Copper concentrate grade of 39.0%.
• Very low arsenic levels in concentrate are expected to attract a premium from concentrate traders.
• Flowsheet improvements derived from this testwork are expected to result in lower up-front capital costs and reduced operational costs and risks.

The testing is the first metallurgical work done on material from the Kansoko Sud area of the resource. The results are integral to the final metallurgical design input parameters that will be needed for the completion of the Kamoa development studies.

Copper recoveries of 88.3%, at a concentrate grade of 39.0% copper, were achieved for the composite sample - an improvement on the previously published 85.9% life-of-mine average copper recovery projected in the November 2013 Kamoa preliminary economic assessment (PEA).

Arsenic levels in concentrate were measured to be 0.010%, which is significantly lower than the limit of 0.5% imposed by Chinese smelters. Ivanhoe believes that Kamoa concentrate with such low arsenic levels should attract a premium from concentrate traders.

"This testwork further confirms the attractiveness of the high-grade Kansoko Sud area for initial mine development at Kamoa," said Mr. Friedland.

The testwork results were achieved using a laboratory flowsheet with a single stage of primary milling followed by rougher and scavenger flotation. The rougher concentrate was cleaned in two stages to produce a high-grade copper concentrate without regrinding. The scavenger concentrate and a screened, coarse portion of the final tailings were combined and reground to between 10 and 15 micrometres (µm), before being cleaned in two stages. The concentrate then was combined with the cleaned, rougher concentrate to form the final concentrate. The flowsheet is a simplification of the previous flowsheet, which included two stages of mainstream grinding and two separate regrind stages.