Austral Resources Australia has intercepted high-grade copper mineralisation in the old Flying Horse pit as it advances a scoping study for the North-West Queensland project.

New assay results from a diamond drilling program at Flying Horse – a copper sulphide resource on the company’s Mount Kelly extended mining lease – include 40m at 2.27 per cent copper from 132m (12.89m true width).

This includes a 16m intercept at 4.71 per cent copper from 150m (5.15m true width).

The Flying Horse-Mount Clarke-Mount Kelly pits are located 1.6km from Austral’s processing facilities and about 120km along a sealed road from Mount Isa.

Recent RC drilling targeting extensions to copper oxide mineralisation at the Mount Kelly pit on the same group of mining leases delivered results including 9m at 1.48 per cent copper from 35m (including 3m at 2.34 per cent copper from 36m).

“These drill results combined with known high-grade mineralisation only 100m from the surface bodes well for the future development of the resource and confirms the substantial exploration potential on Austral’s leases for both copper oxide and sulphide mineralisation,” managing director Dan Jauncey said.

The Flying Horse Pit is one of three mines developed on a package of mining leases during the early 2000s. Large-scale production of copper oxide ores commenced in 2005 yielding more than 55,000t of copper during the life of mine, Austral Resources said.

The company said remnant copper sulphide mineralisation beneath the Flying Horse and Mount Clarke pits represented an established total sulphide resource containing 99,870t of copper. Add the nearby Lady Colleen deposit, and there is a combined inventory of 151,194t of contained copper.