Transition Resources is highlighting the potential to fast-track an open-pit mine and toll-treatment operation at its Duck Creek project, with the release of a maiden resource containing 78,734 tonnes of copper and 19,631 ounces of gold.

The total resource at the Cloncurry site stands at 5.44 million tonnes grading at 1.45 per cent copper and 0.11 g/t gold, including in-pit resources of 2.41 million tonnes at 1.55 per cent copper and 0.13 g/t gold.

“By any measure these are robust numbers,” Transition founder and managing director David Wilson said.

“When combined with existing critical infrastructure such as road and rail, the Duck Creek copper project is ticking important boxes.

“Importantly, and this is a strong point of difference, the MRE indicates in-pit copper grades will facilitate near-term toll treating opportunities, meaning Transition could be within fiscal reach of low-risk, fast-tracked revenue, for relatively minimal shareholder dilution.”

Related: Transition declares significant copper discovery

All deposits remain open along strike and at depth.

In some cases, Transition said high-grade zones had been excluded from the current mineral resources estimate due to insufficient infill drilling.

These are anticipated to be included in future resource updates after modest additional drilling.

Transition has invested about $18 million into its Cloncurry district projects since beginning field work.

“Transition’s immediate focus is to progress its Duck Creek copper project and generate substantial near-term revenue, which it believes can be achieved from low-risk open-pit contract-mining, and toll-treating of high-grade copper ore at one of several local third-party concentrators,” Mr Wilson said.

“The RPEEE (in-pit) mineral resource of 2.41 million tonnes at 1.55 per cent contains 37,445 tonnes of copper and 9,856 ounces of gold.

“This is an excellent starting point for a two-phase hub-and-spoke development model: Phase-1 targeting low up-front capital, toll-treatment, and early revenue.

“The longer-term, Phase-2 focus, is to continue building resource inventories, and to develop a stand-alone mining and processing operation.

“This would include on-site treatment of moderate to high-grade ore, with lower operating costs from a larger-tonnage, higher-throughput operation.

“After testing only 20 of over 200 high priority targets to date, the upside appears obvious.”