The power is on and dry commissioning has started at the newly expanded processing plant at AIC Mines’ Eloise copper-gold operation in North-West Queensland.

AIC Mines (ASX: A1M) managing director Aaron Colleran, in a Meeting of the Mines presentation today, said the expansion was on budget and on schedule for commissioning in the December quarter.

The company awarded an EPC contract to GR Engineering to expand the site’s 700,000tpa capacity plant to 1.1Mtpa in June last year in anticipation of ore starting to flow from its new Jericho mine.

Mr Colleran said AIC Mines had included two important elements in the new plant design:

1. It was designed to minimise operational impacts to Eloise during construction: and
2. The design oversized key equipment ready for a Stage 2 expansion to 1.5Mtpa.

“Both have been great decisions,” Mr Colleran said.

Underground development at Jericho, 3km south of the Eloise operation, is on schedule to see AIC Mines achieve a combined production rate from Eloise and Jericho of 1.1Mtpa by December in line with the commissioning of the 1.1Mtpa plant expansion.

The company has recently committed to accelerate development at Jericho to reach a 1.5Mtpa mining rate by FY29.

Mr Colleran (pictured left) said the company had run Jericho ore through the current plant last quarter to confirm metallurgical assumptions and to assess optimal plant set-up – a key step to de-risking the new plant commissioning schedule.

“The blended ore trial produced on-spec concentrate and average copper recovery of 92.3 per cent, which compares well to Eloise copper recoveries of 93-95 per cent,” he said.

“This is an excellent first-pass result, well within normal operating parameters at Eloise.”

Related: Eloise copper mine owner AIC Mines enters new era

A single-feed trial also produced on-spec concentrate with average copper recovery of 90.3 per cent. Mr Colleran said the results were better than expected given the relatively low grade of the parcel.

Mr Colleran said the cost to expand the plant from 1.1Mtpa to 1.5Mtpa was only about $15 million as most of the equipment was already sized for 1.5Mtpa.

Stage 2 expansion to 1.5Mtpa is planned to commence in FY28.

The Eloise operation produced 13,064t of copper and 6,621oz of gold in concentrate at an AISC of $4.99/lb last financial year.

A recent three-year production outlook indicated that rate would lift to 17,500t – 18,500t copper in concentrate this year, 20,000 – 22,000t in FY28 and more than 25,000t copper from FY29.

“We acquired Eloise in November 2021 – it had no reserves, two years of resources, and was producing 12,500tpa of copper,” Mr Colleran said.

“We now have a mine with a 20-year outlook and a pathway to 25,000tpa of copper. A tenfold increase in resources and a doubling of production.”

AIC Mines recently announced the appointment of Glencore executive Clint Donkin as managing director and chief executive officer, with effect from next month. Mr Colleran will transition to the role of non-executive chairman.