Katanga Mining Limited announced that it has successfully completed the hot commissioning of Phase 2 of its whole ore leach (WOL) processing facility at its 75% owned subsidiary Kamoto Copper Company's (KCC) copper and cobalt mine in Lualaba Province, DRC. The commissioning of the pre-leach circuits is continuing as scheduled and is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. A progressive ramp-up of the facility is expected to follow with the objective of achieving full capacity of the WOL plant by the end of first quarter of 2019. Separately, good progress is being made on the construction of the cobalt debottlenecking project which comprises three new filter presses and an MgO reagent plant within the existing cobalt circuit and the construction of two cobalt hyroxide dryers. It is expected that both upgrades will be commissioned and in full production by the end of First Quarter 2019. This will align cobalt processing capacity with the KCC life-of-mine cobalt production plan of 30,000 tonnes per annum on average and 40,000 tonnes per annum maximum capacity. The export of cobalt hydroxide by KCC remains suspended. As previously announced, the current situation relates to the levels of uranium contained in cobalt hydroxide produced by KCC. While a long-term technical solution in the form of constructing an ion exhange sytem is being reviewed, the Company intends to work with its partner Gécamines to look at various alternative interim solutions, both operational and regulatory, to recommence exports.