Austral Resources is set to lift copper oxide production by about 100 per cent in the next 12-18 months after an optimisation study highlighting the mining potential across a raft of sites on its North-West Queensland mining leases.

The company today revealed plans to fast-track development at previously mined pits Lady Annie, Lady Brenda, Mount Clarke, and Flying Horse.

This would see about 94,000 tonnes of additional contained copper mined by Austral in the next two to five years, on top of the output from its already operating Anthill copper mine.

As part of the optimisation study, an additional lens adjacent to the existing Lady Colleen deposit was identified that could potentially offer a further 36,000 tonnes of total copper production, pushing the total to about 130,000 tonnes of additional contained copper.

“The optimisation work supports a viable go-forward case, and is a very exciting development for Austral, our partners and shareholders,” managing director and chief executive officer Dan Jauncey said.

“The optimisation work confirms we have a business that can continue to be significant and has the scale to potentially be a mid-size copper producer with economic relevance, especially as we continue to move into a greener world.

“These exciting outcomes allow the Austral team to focus on progressing the study, potentially increasing our total production by more than 100 per cent in the next 12-18 months.”

The company has been producing copper cathode from mid-2022 from oxide ore mined at Anthill.

ERM Australia Consultants carried out the Whittle optimisation study, applying a $12,500 per tonne copper price to previously mined pits on Austral tenements at Lady Annie, Lady Brenda, Mount Clarke, and Flying Horse.

A combination of Anthill’s existing production plus additional cut-back oxide tonnes from Lady Colleen and the other pits would increase annual production to over 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes of copper over the next three to five years, which the company describes as transformational for Austral Resources. 

All optimised pits are on existing mining leases and are based on existing JORC compliant mineral resource estimates, providing a rapid pathway to production.

The lens adjacent to Lady Colleen offers an additional 30,000 tonnes of contained copper oxide and transitional ore that can be exploited using Austral’s existing Mounty Kelly processing hub.

There is also more than 90,000 tonnes of additional contained copper ore that could be processed via flotation using a third party mill.

Austral is updating its Lady Colleen scoping study based on the additional identified resources in the optimisation study.

It now plans to carry out further geological, geotechnical and hydrogeological/hydrological work.

Further scheduling will be carried out to optimise the best sequencing of the cutbacks and mine plan with
a detailed review of the input parameters.

Image at top of page: Diamond drill rig at the Flying Horse site.