Austral Resources has extended the known McLeod Hill copper system to more than 1km of strike, well beyond its existing 470m Mineral Resource footprint. The shallow mineralisation sits within existing mining leases and 4.5km of the company’s Western Operations processing facility, but still requires further drilling, modelling and metallurgical work.
- More than 1km of demonstrated copper strike, versus 470m in the current resource
- 5m at 2.32% copper from 70m in southern extension drilling
- Mineralisation extended 340m south and 160m north of the resource
- 20 reverse-circulation holes completed, with 12 significant intersections
- Further resource modelling, metallurgical testing and corridor drilling planned
McLeod Hill copper footprint more than doubles
Austral Resources Australia Ltd (ASX:AR1) has pushed the known strike length of its McLeod Hill copper system beyond 1km, more than twice the approximately 470m covered by the existing Mineral Resource. The company says drilling has extended mineralisation about 340m south and 160m north of that resource footprint, with the system still open along strike and incompletely tested at depth.
The strongest result was 5m at 2.32% copper from 70m in hole MTKC0747, within oxide material. Other notable intersections included 8m at 1.18% copper from 43m, including 5m at 1.63%, and 15m at 0.83% from 70m, including 4m at 1.67%. The reported intervals are downhole widths; Austral estimates true widths at approximately 87% of those figures.
Shallow extensions sit beside existing processing infrastructure
McLeod Hill is located within mining leases ML5474 and ML5426, around 4.5km from Austral’s Western Operations copper processing facility at Mt Kelly. The deposit currently carries a Mineral Resource of 1.68 million tonnes at 0.64% copper, comprising 0.59 million tonnes of Indicated material and 1.09 million tonnes of Inferred material.
That infrastructure proximity gives the exploration results a practical angle, although the filing does not provide a new resource, recovery estimate, production plan or economic assessment. The latest programme involved 20 reverse-circulation holes, 12 of which returned significant copper intersections under Austral’s stated reporting criteria. The result builds on the earlier Mt Kelly oxide discovery, but continuity between separate mineralised zones remains a matter for further drilling rather than an established fact.
Geological reinterpretation opens northern and southern targets
Austral said a reinterpretation of fault offsets along the contact between the Gunpowder Creek Formation and older basement rocks led it to reposition drilling beyond the historical footprint. The new holes intersected mineralisation beneath alluvial, colluvial and silcrete cover, areas where surface exploration had been less effective.
To the north, hole MTKC0722 returned 24m at 0.41% copper from 67m, including 8m at 0.58%. The company says the latest results support its revised structural model, while also pointing to a broader McLeod Hill-Canyon corridor of approximately 3km. Austral has not established continuity between McLeod Hill and the Canyon system, despite the two deposits sharing a prospective geological trend.
Resource update and metallurgical testing are next
The next stage is less glamorous but more consequential: Austral plans to incorporate the results into its geological and resource models, test oxide and transitional samples, and drill further to the north, south and at depth. Planned metallurgical work includes bottle-roll and column testing, with particular attention to low-calcium transitional material that may be suitable for heap leaching.
Until that work is complete, the announcement is best read as an exploration expansion rather than a quantified increase in mineable copper. The proximity to Mt Kelly may improve the strategic appeal of any future resource growth, but the key valuation question remains unanswered: how much of this newly outlined mineralisation can be converted into a coherent, recoverable and economically relevant resource?
Bottom Line?
The geological footprint has expanded materially, but the next resource model and metallurgical results will determine whether the extra strike becomes a development opportunity.
Questions in the middle?
- How much contained copper will the expanded drilling add to McLeod Hill’s next Mineral Resource estimate?
- Will oxide and transitional material deliver recoveries suitable for integration with the Mt Kelly heap-leach and SX-EW operation?
- Can further drilling establish continuity between McLeod Hill and the Canyon system along the broader 3km corridor?