AIC Mines has sights on ‘transformational’ discovery

The exploration team at AIC Mines has a brief to aim high, with a focus on a transformational discovery in the region of the company's Eloise copper complex. "We don’t need more 2 per cent copper ore (for now)," managing director Aaron Colleran said. "The challenge I have put to our exploration team is to find something higher grade or bigger, a deposit that will displace material from our current LOMP (life of mine plan) or that gives us reason to expand Eloise to 2Mtpa or even construct a second processing hub." Mr Colleran told the Bell Potter Unearthed conference that the company held a resource base of 22.9Mt grading 2.1 per cent copper within 20km of Eloise, providing a robust long-term outlook for the project. The exploration program underway would test more targets than had been tested in the region in the last 10 years, he said. "Five targets were tested in the December 2024 quarter, and we are awaiting assay results for Holbrook, Mid-West, Eloise South, Surprise Ridge and Bagdad," Mr Colleran said. "These are early stage targets that we are testing though, first pass drilling with one or two holes, so it is high-risk high-reward drilling – not every hole is going to hit mineralisation. "But the aim is to test the targets quickly and then move on to new targets. Leaving no stone unturned (so to speak)." AIC Mines took ownership of the Eloise copper mine, about 60km south-east of Cloncurry, in November 2021, completing a $27 million acquisition deal with FMR Investments. It has work underway on a $50 million link drive between the Eloise operation and its next mine, the Jericho deposit. Mr Colleran said the company was on schedule to reach first development ore at Jericho in June 2026. Meanwhile, he said the drilling we completed at Jericho in 2024 had exceeded expectations. "It showed that the Jericho mineralisation is much more strike-extensive than we had thought," he said. "The drilling we completed last year has upgraded Swagman, Matilda North, Jumbuck and the 3 EM plates (geophysical anomalies) at Jericho South. "We’ve now intersected mineralisation over 5km of strike from Jericho South through to Swagman." The new drilling will be captured in AIC Mines' mineral resource update, due to be released in March, and ore reserve update, due in April. While the results were good from the point of view of resources and reserves, Mr Colleran said they were also important from a mining point of view. "The longer strike means that we can open up more ore headings along the orebody and therefore mine more tonnes," he said. "We originally thought we’d be able to mine Jericho at a rate of about 600,000 tpa; we now think we could do over 1Mpa. "The location of the new resources is also important – mining at Jericho is currently expected to ramp up to 600,000tpa over 12 months after the link drive reaches Matilda. "However, Matilda North now potentially provides additional stoping areas, close to the link drive, which could mean that we can ramp up production more quickly. "Remember that Jericho is also open at depth. We have been strategic in defining resources through surface drilling to a depth of only 500m (the top 450m of the orebody). Deep holes are expensive and often hard to keep on target so it is much better to do that drilling from underground. "Only five holes have been drilled deeper than 500m. They all hit mineralisation." Related: AIC Mines forges ahead with Eloise expansion plans Mr Colleran said the company would carry out some limited deeper drilling this year, "but most of it will be done from underground, when we get there." The company has also notched up new discoveries at Eloise itself – at Lens 6 and Elrose-Levuka North. Mr Colleran said this provided flexibility to the mining schedule as well as a grade boost. "Both are well above the average grade of 1.8 per cent that we mine in the Upper Levels," he said. Recent resource definition drilling at Lens 6 returned intercepts including 18.4m (14.5m ETW) grading 5.0 per cent copper and and 1.4g/t gold, while Elrose-Levuka North returned 15.0m (12.7m ETW) grading 7.7 per cent copper and 1.4g/t gold. "So don’t forget what a sensational orebody Eloise is. There’s potentially more to be found," Mr Colleran said. He said the deposit was open at depth, had potential for parallel lenses, and potential for structural offsets of known lenses – as the Elrose-Levuka North drilling had shown.

AIC Mines has sights on ‘transformational’ discovery

Industry Queensland

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