In-Place Recovery (IPR) through underground stope leaching is potentially an effective mining technology to extract copper from low-grade hard deposits that are otherwise considered uneconomic. This study provides a comprehensive modelling of the main physical processes relevant to IPR of copper minerals. This includes adopting Richard's equation with Van Genuchten retention model for unsaturated irrigation, convection-diffusion equation with the Millington and Quirk (1961) effective diffusivity model for transport of species, and reaction zone-based shrinking core model for mineral dissolution. Multiple cases with different material properties and operational parameters were examined to assess how these factors impact the stope leaching performance. It was shown that a good overall performance requires both fast and uniform reaction within the stope. For the tested cases, the results suggest that >50 per cent of the copper in the stope can be dissolved through leaching within one year of operation, given that a sufficiently high irrigation rate and/or lixiviant concentration were applied.