QMines (ASX: QML) is undertaking a 10,000m multi-rig drilling campaign at its flagship Mount Chalmers copper-gold project near Rockhampton.

The company said the campaign was led by the largest program ever drilled at the copper-gold dominant Woods Shaft deposit, aimed at growing its resource to support an expanded Mount Chalmers mine.

The second workstream is designed to generate the metallurgical, geotechnical, environmental and resource-confidence datasets required to complete the Mount Chalmers definitive feasibility study, including the first drilling beneath the flooded historical open pit from a floating pontoon.

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With 16 holes already complete and three drilling rigs still in progress, QMines said it was positioned for a sustained flow of technical results and project milestones through the second half of 2026.

Initial results from the first metallurgical hole include 18m at 2.7g/t gold and 1.7 per cent copper from 54m, including 12m at 3.8g/t gold and 2.0 per cent copper and 1m at 20.3g/t gold and 3.3 per cent copper from 61m (MCDD003).

“This is the biggest drilling campaign QMines has ever undertaken, and the opening results are exactly what we wanted to see,” QMines executive chairman Andrew Sparke said.

“An intercept of 18m at 2.7g/t gold and 1.7 per cent copper, with metre-scale hits above 20g/t gold, confirms the quality and scale of the Mount Chalmers system.

“Woods Shaft is a copper-gold deposit, and the gold is what excites us most.

“We believe it reflects a gold-rich event reaching well beyond the known massive sulphides, and our largest ever program there is aimed at growing Woods Shaft and folding it into an expanded Mount Chalmers resource.

“Alongside it we are completing the drilling that feeds the DFS. Running both together lets us build the resource and advance the study in parallel and sets QMines up for strong news flow through the rest of 2026.”