Revolver Resources has announced an updated mineral resource estimate at the Dianne project north-west of Cairns.

This includes a 140 per cent increase in the indicated MRE to 1.09Mt, with 86 per cent of the optimised open pit material now in the indicated classification, and a 26 per cent increase in overall MRE copper grade to 1.38 per cent copper.

Main image: Early Drilling at Revolver Resources’ Dianne project in Far North Queensland

The development of the site was progressing in unison, Revolver managing director Pat Williams said.

“The recent Dianne pre-development drilling program and today’s Dianne MRE update have been important steps, taken in parallel with ongoing planning and site pre-development works, to provide greater geological and mining confidence ahead of the targeted restart of operations at Dianne. 

“Successfully upgrading a much larger component of the Greenhill open pit mineralisation to indicated status delivers us a very strong foundation from which to restart mining operations and commence heap leach plus SX-EW processing to produce copper cathode on a capital-lite basis.

“Our priority is to now finalize all residual development workstreams, including offtake and financing, in order to take a positive FID on the Dianne copper mine project in the coming months. 

“This would have us on track to deliver targeted first copper cathode output during H2 2026. Longer term, the high-grade primary lens extending beneath the modelled open pit shell delivers potential open pit extension or underground mining in the future, which could result in a significantly longer life operation than initially anticipated.”

The company advised the ASX that the total Dianne MRE now stands at 1.31Mt at 1.38 per cent Cu for 18.05kt contained copper, comprising:

• The Greenhill supergene oxide open-pit mineralization of 1.22 Mt at 1.13 per cent Cu for 13.8 kt contained copper (0.25% Cu cut-off). This combines a near surface and outcropping high-grade primary and supergene sulphide component encompassed within a broad lower-grade halo of supergene oxide mineralization. Initial metallurgical tests have shown that the Greenhill supergene oxide mineralization is highly amenable to low-cost heap leach processing and it forms the basis of the Dianne Copper Mine Project restart planning.
• A high-grade, below-pit component of 86 kt @ 4.92 per cent Cu for 4.3 kt contained copper (1.5 per cent Cu cut-off), amenable to open pit extension and/or underground mining methods.