True North Copper has kicked off copper sulphate production in Cloncurry as the newly listed entity advances its plans to breathe fresh life into a raft of North-West Queensland projects.

The company has an exclusive offtake agreement with Kanins International for the product from its refurbished solvent extraction and copper sulphate crystallisation plant at the Great Australia complex.

True North Copper started trading on the Australian Securities Exchange last month following its merger with Duke Exploration and a $37.7 million capital raising.

Managing director Marty Costello described the start of copper sulphate production as another milestone in True North’s overarching strategy to become Australia’s next critical minerals producer of copper and cobalt as it finalised restart studies for full-scale production at Great Australia.

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“We’re thrilled to announce the successful commencement of our first copper sulphate production,” he said.

“This accomplishment is a testament to the dedication and efforts of our entire team. We have worked hard to achieve copper sulphate production in a short period of time and we are proud to be one of the few active copper sulphate producers in the country.

“We believe our offtake agreement with Kanins International provides confidence in True North Copper’s revenue generation.”

Initial production capacity is estimated at 12,000 tonnes of copper sulphate crystal per annum.

However, True North has already initiated plans to expand production in light of growing demand from domestic and international markets.

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Copper sulphate is a mineral salt with applications ranging from use in agricultural fungicides, animal feed supplements, and soil sterilisation to electroplating and laboratory reagents.

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.

Grade control and exploration drilling started in May.