You’ve got to love it when all the stars start to align for a miner…

At the end of 2024 we wrote you about the growing fortunes of a company specializing in one ore that was still holding its own price-wise.

Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. (TSE: INV) had reported on its production progress at its Kamoa-Kakula Copper Complex in the Central African Copperbelt. We noted:

The mine produced a record 116,313 metric tons of copper in Q3 compared with 86,203 MT in Q1 and 100,812 MT in Q2. The mine has produced 303,328 MT of copper year-to-date.

Production guidance for the rest of the year is between 425,00 and 450,000 metric tons.

For their efforts, they were able to report a quarterly profit of $108 million for the third quarter of 2024, compared with $67 million for Q2.

They just released their year-end results.

In Q4 they delivered a record 133,819 MT of copper concentrate and ended the year reporting production of just over 437,000 metric tons. Right on target with their guidance. It was an increase of 12% year-over-year.

Now they’ve just released their production guidance for 2025. And it’s looking very positive…

TSX-listed Ivanhoe Mines has announced its 2025 production target for the Kamoa-Kakula copper complex in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), aiming for between 520 000 t and 580 000 t in the year.

And the timing of this announcement couldn’t be better where copper prices are concerned…

A Breakout in Ore

One of the noteworthy factors in our last update was that the price of copper had been holding its own relative to a lot of other metals. This made it attractive for miners (as opposed to other metals whose prices were in the tank).

Last week copper prices made a statement by rallying to take out their trendline down that has kept them under pressure since May of last year…

Copper

This puts copper prices in a stronger technical position.

We should note, technical breakouts like these can often be followed by retracements to the trendline. We mention this because it makes ensuing weakness worth watching, but not necessarily sounding alarm bells over.

The bottom line is that the boost in production expectations PLUS the potential upside breakout in copper prices has reinforced IVN as a company worth watching.