A major drilling program has kicked off at the Briggs copper project to upgrade the mineral resource estimate in support of a pre-feasibility study.

Canterbury Resources (ASX: CBY) describes Briggs, about 60km west of Gladstone, as one of the largest and best-located undeveloped copper projects in Australia.

“There is a shortage of major copper development opportunities in favourable jurisdictions, and massive, well-located projects such as Briggs are likely to become important contributors to future copper supply,” Canterbury managing director Grant Craighead said.

The pre-feasibility study is assessing the potential development of a large-scale, long-life open-cut mining operation using low-cost conventional flotation technology to produce copper concentrate.

The 2026 component of the drilling program backing that study is planned to include 45 diamond core holes (about 14,000m) and covers multiple objectives including:

• conversion of inferred resources to the indicated category to support detailed mine design and scheduling in the pre-feasibility study,
• testing of lateral and depth targets, aimed at expanding the mineral resource estimate, and
• providing material for metallurgical test work, aimed at optimising the mineral processing flowsheet.

Further drilling is planned in the first half of 2027 to convert most of the remaining inferred resource to the indicated resource category to support the engineering, mining and mine-scheduling components of the pre-feasibility study.

Canterbury’s joint venture partner Alma Metals (ASX: ALM) is sole-funding and managing Briggs activities under an earn-in agreement. It can reach a 70 per cent interest by spending a further $6 million.

Canterbury said drilling had started with one rig, with a second drill rig scheduled to join the effort early next quarter.

In addition to drilling and metallurgical test work programs, consultants will manage environmental baseline surveys with critical components to commence this quarter.

Characterisation of waste and tailings chemistry will form an important part of the environmental studies.

The Briggs mineral resource estimate stands at 2.0Mt copper (at a 0.15 per cent cut-off grade), 73Mlb molybdenum and 16.5Moz silver.