True North Copper is making headway at its Cloncurry Copper Project (CCP), with mining activities at Wallace North and initial crushing and stacking activities at the Cloncurry Operations Hub (COH) progressing.
In July, the company announced the commencement of mining activities at Wallace North, one of four open-pit deposits making up CCP. Since then, True North Copper has mined 223k bank cubic metres (BCM) of overburden, including 22,000t of oxide ore placed on the Wallace North run-of-mine (RoM) to date.
Transportation of oxide ore from the Wallace North pit to the Great Australia Mine (GAM) crushing facility commenced in September. To date, approximately 8,300t has been crushed and stacked on the leach pad, and 2,400t remains available to True North Copper in the current crushing campaign.
Irrigation of the ore has commenced and will contribute to improved copper production from the solvent extraction (SX) plant. This is the first new ore mined by the company to be added to the heap leach since the company commissioned the SX plant in 2023.
True North Copper has binding offtake and toll milling agreements with global commodity trader Glencore International AG for 100 per cent of copper concentrate produced at CCP and toll milling of up to 1Mt of ore per year. Under the toll milling agreement, sulphide ore will be transported to a third-party concentrator for toll treatment in Q1 2025.
True North Copper’s Managing Director, Bevan Jones, said, “TNC continues to make positive progress towards its goal of becoming an Australian copper producer and critical minerals supplier at the CCP.
“Since our previous update in September, operations including our mining activities at Wallace North to the initial crushing and stacking activities at our Cloncurry Operations Hub (COH) have transitioned seamlessly.”
Mr Jones commended the CCP team for its progress but said the hard work would continue in the coming weeks as the crushing and stacking activities accelerate further.
“We look forward to providing further updates on progress at CCP as we move closer to production in the coming months.
“Concurrently, we have been buoyed by the response to our recruitment campaign in Queensland to build our team at CCP. We will see 28 new employees joining the TNC team by mid-November, which will be a great result for the company and help ensure operations continue to advance on schedule at CCP.”
The company’s recruitment drive is ongoing and aims to establish a workforce of 100 people at CCP by December.
