Carnaby Resources has announced a 10 per cent lift in mineral resources at its Greater Duchess copper-gold project in North-West Queensland to 482,800 CuEq tonnes.

It comes as the company updated the Trek 1 and Trek 2 mineral resource estimates at the Trekelano mine site to include drilling completed this year.

“The MRE (mineral resources estimate) increase has predominantly come from the addition of inferred mineral resource at Trek 1 underground, for which scoping level studies will be undertaken separate to the Greater Duchess feasibility study, which remains in progress,” Carnaby Resources (ASX: CNB) managing director Rob Watkins said.

“Carnaby is now focussed on delivering the Greater Duchess project into development through what we believe is the superior risk-weighted pathway under the proposed acquisition by Evolution Mining.”

The companies last month announced they had entered into a binding scheme implementation deed that would see Carnaby shareholders receive 0.0682 new Evolution shares for each Carnaby share held, valuing Carnaby at about $213 million.

Evolution (ASX:EVN) said the acquisition had the potential to deliver about 10ktpa of additional copper production at its Ernest Henry operation near Cloncurry.

This will use latent mill capacity and improve the operation’s cost profile while supporting the Bert expansion project currently in execution.

Related: Carnaby releases latest Greater Duchess assays

The total mineral resource for the Greater Duchess project stands at 30.8Mt at 1.3 per cent copper, 0.3g/t gold, 1.6 per cent CuEq for contained 415,000t copper, 258,700oz gold (or 482,800t CuEq).

The indicated mineral resource stands at of 17.6Mt at 1.5 per cent copper, 0.3g/t gold, 1.7 per cent CuEq for contained 262,000t copper and 156,800oz gold (303,500t CuEq).

The inferred mineral resource stands at 13.2Mt at 1.2 per cent copper, 0.2g/t gold, 1.4 per cent CuEq for contained 153,000t copper and 101,900oz gold (179,300t CuEq).

Carnaby said the mineralisation at Trekelano, within the Greater Duchess project, occured in three separate deposit areas – Trek 1, Trek 2 and Inheritance.

Trek 1 has been modelled to a depth of 735m below surface, while Inheritance and Trek 2 have been modelled to depths of 380m and 230m respectively.

The total mineral resource estimate for Trekelano is 7.15Mt at 1.5 per cent copper, 0.4g/t gold and 1.8 per cent CuEq. Contained metal figures stand at 107,700 tonnes for copper, 92,000 ounces for gold and 132,000 tonnes copper equivalent.