True North Copper is sizing up its Wallace North asset, where new drilling has delivered intercepts including 6m at 12.99 g/t gold and 10m at 2.22 per cent copper.

Wallace North is an important part of True North’s Cloncurry Hub mining plans, according to managing director Marty Costello.

“This drilling program confirms there are several high-grade copper and gold zones within the Wallace North approved mining footprint, open at depth and warranting further exploration,” he said.

“More drilling will be undertaken across these zones and the anomalies we identified as part of recent IP surveys.”

Wallace North is part of True North’s Cloncurry project, where it is already producing copper sulphate from its refurbished solvent extraction and crystallisation plant at the Great Australia complex.

True North has previously reported that it is well advanced on mining restart studies examining a return to full-scale copper production at the Cloncurry hub via open-pit mining at the Great Australia mine.

Related: True North reports four-ace pull from recent drilling

Wallace North has a combined indicated and inferred resource of 1.39Mt at 1.38 per cent copper and 0.90g/t gold.

The company today released results from resource extension drilling and Induced Polarisation (IP) survey results at Wallace North.

New IP geophysics and historic EM indicate substantial depth extent to the Wallace North system and highlight new targets with similar signatures to recent discoveries of gold-endowed iron-sulphide-copper-gold deposits in the Mount Isa Inlier.

True North said the drilling had defined the down-plunge continuity of a 100m-wide, 250m-deep high-grade copper-gold shoot open at depth.

It also intersected the top of an untested shoot, potentially 200m wide and open to depth.

“Thanks to this completed resource expansion drilling and IP surveying, along with our recently concluded advanced grade control drilling program, which included 150 drillholes and more than 9400m of drilling, we can now finalise an updated resource for Wallace North,” Mr Costello said.

Further development of Wallace North will include mining and metallurgical studies, downhole and ground-based geophysics and follow-up drillhole targeting (with completion expected Q1 2024).

Mr Costello said chalcopyrite was prevalent copper mineralisation in the resource, and this typically responded well to standard flotation.

“Given the gold is intertwined with the copper mineralisation, there is a strong possibility of extracting gold in a concentrated form during ore processing,” he said.

Below: Plan view showing the collar location and drill traces of holes WNR0001 to WNR0008 at Wallace North.

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