True North Copper (TNC) has announced that it will begin mining ore at its Wallace North mine site in Queensland in early Q4 FY24 as part of its Cloncurry Copper Project.
TNC said that mining preparation Wallace North progressed in March as access and mine areas dried after monsoonal rainfall events in February and early March, including:
- Mobilisation of mining equipment and support infrastructure to the Wallace North project site
- Preparation of existing access and haulage roads for upcoming mining activities
- Completion of short-term mine scheduling by technical service teams
- Onboarding of skilled mining fleet operators
The mining ramp-up will initially build ore stockpiles, with haulage expected to begin in mid-May 2024. Oxide ore will be transported by road train to the Cloncurry Operations Hub’s heap leach.
Sulphide ore will be transported to a nearby concentrator for toll treatment under TNC’s toll-milling agreement with Glencore.
The Cloncurry Copper Project currently incorporates the Great Australia Mine Reserve and the Wallace North Reserve, totalling 4.7Mt grading 0.80 percent copper (Cu) and 0.13g/t gold (Au) containing 37.5kt of copper and 20.0koz of gold at a strip ratio of 4.22.
TNC said that the Cloncurry Copper Project restart plan confirms positive project economics including mine revenue of $367 million with free cash flow of $111 million and a pre-tax NPV10 of $88M over a 4.6 year mine life, at USD$8,500/t Cu price and USD$1,850/oz Au price (0.7 A$:USD exchange rate).
True North Copper’s Managing Director, Marty Costello, said, “This is an exciting and transformative phase for TNC. Thanks to the hard work of our Mining Operations Team we are prepared and ready to deliver on our Cloncurry Copper Project Mining Restart Plan with mining commencing at Wallace North in early Q4 FY24.
“Cloncurry Copper Project project economics confirm a robust mining operation that is low risk and low-cost. Projected mine revenue is A$367M with a free cash flow of AU$111M.
“Our plans to develop Mount Oxide into our next mine continue as we finalise the Vero mineral resource re-estimation and optimisation study.”
