The Jericho orebody in North-West Queensland is exceeding expectations for strike extent, continuity and grade, according to AIC Mines managing director Aaron Colleran.

He was commenting on new drilling results from Jericho’s Jolly shoot, returning high copper, gold and silver grades.

The Jolly shoot is to be the first area mined at Jericho, about 4km south of the company’s Eloise copper mine and processing plant.

An eight-hole surface program of resource definition drilling at the Jolly shoot has returned results including:

• JEDD102 – 3.1m grading 1.5 per cent copper, 1.9g/t gold and 1.6g/t silver (3.2 per cent CuEq) from 207.9m
• JEDD105 – 8.1m grading 2.5 per cent copper, 1.1g/t gold and 2.5g/t silver (3.5 per cent CuEq) from 122.6m
• JEDD106 – 9.2m grading 3.2 per cent copper, 1.3g/t gold and 3.0g/t silver (4.4 per cent CuEq) from 105.0m
• JEDD109 – 2.2m grading 7.1 per cent copper, 1.0g/t gold and 5.9g/t silver (8.0 per cent CuEq) from 161.4m

An ongoing underground program of resource definition drilling at the Jolly shoot has delivered results including:

• JY003 – 7.4m grading 2.1 per cent copper, 0.5g/t gold and 3.8g/t silver (2.6 per cent CuEq)
• JY023 – 3.4m grading 4.4 per cent copper, 1.5g/t gold and 2.8g/t silver (5.8 per cent CuEq)
• JY027 – 6.6m grading 3.6 per cent copper, 1.4g/t gold and 3.1g/t silver (4.8 per cent CuEq)
• JY028 – 4.8m grading 3.3 per cent copper, 1.7g/t gold and 3.9g/t silver (4.9 per cent CuEq)
• JY030 – 7.3m grading 3.3 per cent copper, 0.2g/t gold and 3.5g/t silver (3.5 per cent CuEq)

The results augured well for a successful commencement to mining at Jericho, the company said.

“The December 2026 quarter is set to be the most exciting quarter in AIC Mines’ short history,” Mr Colleran said.

“I look forward to seeing this ore being fed into the new crusher.”

The Eloise mine, 60km southeast of Cloncurry, is currently producing at an annual rate of about 12,500t of copper in concentrate.

However work is underway to expand production to about 20,000tpa copper in concentrate with the development of the Jericho deposit and expansion of the Eloise processing plant.