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Murray Ward
True North Copper has delivered a suite of broad, shallow copper and gold assay results from a recently completed exploration and resource extension drilling program at its Great Australia Mine in North-West Queensland.
The company says the results continue to demonstrate strong continuity of mineralisation outside the existing resource footprint. The findings may support incremental shallow resource growth and future flexibility in the mine plan within the company’s broader Cloncurry copper project.
The star of the reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign was a single hole, which targeted the Coppermine Creek prospect southwest of the main deposit. The drill bit intercepted an impressive 51-metre zone grading 0.37 per cent copper and 0.07 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 133m, featuring a higher-grade 30m section grading 0.52 per cent copper and 0.09g/t gold.
The same hole also clocked a secondary shallow bonus slice of 10 metres at 0.88 per cent copper and 0.15g/t gold from 78 metres.
‘We look forward to the upcoming Wallace North and South RC drilling results.Drilling targeted high-grade copper-gold intersections.’
True North Copper managing director Andrew Mooney
Adding further flavour to the program, another hole struck a 13-metre zone at 0.38 per cent copper and 0.08g/t gold from 30 metres, including a notable one-metre section grading 2.01 per cent copper, 0.47g/t gold and 411 parts per million cobalt from 35 metres.
Nearby, a third hole also hit a discrete zone of 7m going at 0.86 per cent copper and 0.12g/t gold from 105 metres.
Importantly for the company’s development plans, the new mineralisation sits 75m outside the current resource boundary and occurs at shallow depths between about 25m and 100m below surface.
While the campaign was led by these wide hits, drilling at Great Australia North and the Whip target also successfully intersected copper mineralisation. Holes at the Brown Snake target encountered narrow structures, including 2m at 0.52 per cent copper from 72m.
Meanwhile, a single deep hole at Whip hit 2m grading 0.26 per cent copper from 298 metres. While narrow, the True North says these results are important since they define the edges of the mineralised system and will help tighten the company’s structural modelling.
True North Copper managing director Andrew Mooney said: “These drilling results from Great Australia continue to support our broader strategy of building a robust and right-sized Cloncurry copper project with a credible near-term development pathway.”
However, these prospects are not being explored in isolation. They represent key building blocks in True North’s plan to create a significant copper production hub by consolidating a set of district-scale targets across the well-endowed Mount Isa Inlier in northwest Queensland.
The company says the results have opened up a credible near-term cash flow opportunity at Cloncurry, which could help to fund its massive regional exploration programs.
The jewel in that regional crown is the advanced Mount Oxide project, 200 kilometres to the northwest. Mount Oxide hosts the high-grade Vero resource of 15.03 million tonnes grading 1.46 per cent copper and 10.59g/t silver.
Rather than a single-deposit asset, fresh geophysics at Mount Oxide has traced the parallel Aquila discovery over a 1.5-kilometre strike length. Aquila previously delivered stunning hits, including 145 metres grading 0.75 per cent copper, 59 metres at 1.77 per cent copper, and a shallow 30 metres at 2.45 per cent copper, underscoring the massive scale the company is chasing.
With all drilling activities now finalised at Cloncurry, True North is shifting its focus to technical work. The market can expect a progressive flow of RC assay results from the Wallace North and South prospects through June and July, with diamond drilling assays, metallurgical test work and geotechnical modelling will follow through to September.
All the exploration outcomes will then be integrated into future resource upgrades, reserve definitions and a comprehensive pre-feasibility study slated for delivery in the final quarter of this year.
With the drilling rigs now packed up and moving off-site, True North is transitioning from field exploration to the crunching of technical data. If the upcoming wave of drill results can match the solid widths and shallow depths delivered by this opening round, the company’s development pipeline appears set for a busy second half of 2026.
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