Wheels in motion for Jericho mine to be online in 2025

Eloise copper operations owner AIC Mines aims to be shifting dirt for a new portal at the nearby Jericho deposit early next year as it pushes ahead with a regional strategy to boost mine life and production. AIC acquired the Jericho copper deposit, 4km south of Eloise, in a recent takeover of Demetallica. Managing director Aaron Colleran said it hoped to be in production there by early to mid-2025, feeding the Jericho ore into an expanded processing facility at Eloise. The company has lodged mining lease and standard EA applications with the aim of being able to carry out preparatory construction work as soon as possible. "With approval late this year, that would allow us then to get out and commence construction of the portal at Jericho and some basic surface works like a water storage dam and the workshop," Mr Colleran said. Related: Focus on processing as AIC executes expansion plans About 220 people are employed in the Eloise operations and Mr Colleran said that was set to increase by about 100 as mining started at Jericho and the processing plant was upgraded. Jericho will be an underground mine. "The mineralisation starts at about 50m depth and the top 50m is recent sedimentary cover," Mr Colleran said. "Where often you may leave a box cut open, the difference with that sediment is we will need to dig the box cut and then backfill it or shotcrete it prior to commencing the portal. "If we backfill, we will install concrete arches in and then backfill it to surface, so there's no box cut or open pit left at surface. "We hope to get all that work started early next year. From the day we kick off the portal at Jericho, there's probably a good 12 months' worth of mining ahead of us until we reach first ore." Related: Austral works with Glencore for copper oxide boost That gives AIC about 18 months to expand the Eloise processing plant before sufficient ore is ready to fill the planned one-million-tonne-plus processing capacity. Meanwhile the company has kicked off its first drilling program at Jericho since the acquisition. It plans to complete 23,500m of reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling within six months.The aim is to increase the resource and upgrade the resource confidence. Mr Colleran said the resource definition drilling program would provide important information to further optimise the mining schedule and de-risk the project start-up. A seismic ambient noise tomography (ANT) survey is planned for the area immediately surrounding Jericho. The survey will map the cover-basement interface to aid with positioning mine infrastructure as well as imaging the basement to depths of up to 750m below surface, potentially providing a low-cost input into a 3D geological and structural model beyond the areas of drilling. As at January this year, the Jericho mineral resource stood at 9.8 million tonnes grading 1.8 per cent copper and 0.4 g/t gold, containing 180,000 tonnes of copper and 11,600 ounces of gold.

Wheels in motion for Jericho mine to be online in 2025

Industry Queensland

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