Austral Resources Stretches McLeod Hill Copper Past 1km Near Its Own Processing Plant
Key Takeaways
- Drilling has extended McLeod Hill mineralisation to more than 1 km of strike, against 470 m in the existing Mineral Resource, with growth of about 340 m south and 160 m north.
- Hole MTKC0747 returned 5m @ 2.32% Cu from 70m in oxide, and 12 of 20 extension holes hit significant copper.
- The growth sits inside existing Mining Leases, about 4.5 km from the 30,000tpa Western Operations SX-EW plant.
- The 1.68 Mt @ 0.64% Cu resource from May 2024 excludes the new drilling, and no timelines were given for the update or for metallurgical testing.
- A roughly 3 km McLeod Hill–Canyon corridor remains largely untested, with Canyon already returning up to 24m @ 1.03% Cu.
McLeod Hill copper system extends beyond 1km with 5m @ 2.32% Cu intercept
Most explorers chase new ground. Austral Resources Australia Ltd (ASX: AR1) has instead found more copper next door to what it already knows, with recent assays expanding the known strike of the McLeod Hill copper system to more than 1 km.
The existing Mineral Resource covers approximately 470 m of strike. The headline result came from hole MTKC0747, which returned 5m @ 2.32% Cu from 70m in oxide material.
McLeod Hill sits within Mining Leases ML5474 and ML5426, approximately 4.5 km from the Western Operations copper processing facility. In plain terms, the growth is brownfields, meaning it is happening on ground the company already holds and close to infrastructure it already operates.
David Newling, Chairman, Austral Resources
“Importantly, this growth is occurring within our existing Mining Leases and only approximately 4.5 kilometres from our Western Operations facility. This combination of existing copper resources, shallow oxide mineralisation, established infrastructure and further exploration potential makes McLeod Hill a strategic brownfields growth opportunity for AR.”
Key intercepts
The table below summarises the highlight results. Intercepts are downhole widths, and the company states true widths are approximately 87% of intercept width.
| Hole | Width and grade | From depth | Including | Material type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MTKC0747 | 5m @ 2.32% Cu | 70m | n/a | Oxide |
| MTKC0748 | 20m @ 0.59% Cu | 67m | 5m @ 1.40% Cu (from 67m) | Oxide + Transitional |
| MTKC0749 | 8m @ 1.18% Cu | 43m | 5m @ 1.63% Cu (from 43m) | Oxide + Transitional |
| MTKC0750 | 15m @ 0.83% Cu | 70m | 4m @ 1.67% Cu (from 71m) | Oxide + Transitional |
Significant intercepts use a 0.25% Cu cut-off, no external dilution and up to one metre of internal dilution, with a minimum intercept of 3m and a significance threshold of 0.3% Cu. Note that the highlights list MTKC0748’s included interval as 1.40% Cu, while the Appendix 3 intercept details show 1.39% Cu. The highlights figure is used here. Appendix 3 also lists MTKC0749’s main interval as 1.19% Cu, against 1.18% Cu in the highlights.
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How the revised geological model unlocked the extensions
The latest drilling followed a reinterpretation of the geological and structural controls at McLeod Hill. That work identified subtle fault offsets along the prospective contact between the Gunpowder Creek Formation and older basement rocks.
In several areas, historical holes were interpreted to have been collared too close to the faulted basement contact. That made them an ineffective test of where mineralisation was projected to continue.
AR used the revised interpretation to reposition drilling beyond the historical footprint. A total of 20 holes were drilled targeting extensions, and 12 returned significant copper intersections.
Drilling extended mineralisation approximately 340 m south and 160 m north of the existing Mineral Resource footprint. Mineralisation remains open along strike and incompletely tested at depth.
Key extension results:
- South: MTKC0749 returned 8m @ 1.18% Cu from 43m, including 5m @ 1.63% Cu, beneath alluvial cover and colluvial scree.
- North: MTKC0722 returned 24m @ 0.41% Cu from 67m (oxide), including 8m @ 0.58% Cu from 71m, beneath younger silcrete cover.
Why does the cover matter? Both areas have limited surface expression, so conventional surface exploration is less effective there. The company says the results highlight the effectiveness of its updated interpretation in finding extensions that historical drilling did not adequately test.
Oxide copper and why proximity to a plant matters
Oxide copper forms where weathering has changed copper minerals near surface. At McLeod Hill, oxide mineralisation is characterised predominantly by malachite, azurite and chrysocolla above approximately 280 mRL (metres above a reference sea level). At depth, the system transitions into sulphide-bearing mineralisation containing chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite.
AR’s Western Operations is a copper oxide heap leach and solvent extraction electrowinning (SX-EW) plant with a nameplate capacity of 30,000tpa of copper cathode. Shallow oxide copper close to a plant like that is the kind of material the company’s brownfields strategy targets.
The announcement does not disclose project economics or production plans for McLeod Hill.
Existing resource and the McLeod Hill–Canyon corridor
McLeod Hill’s current Mineral Resource Estimate is 1.68 Mt @ 0.64% Cu, made up of 0.59 Mt @ 0.68% Cu Indicated and 1.09 Mt @ 0.61% Cu Inferred. It dates from the 20 May 2024 announcement and does not include the new drilling.
To the north lies the Canyon copper system, where drilling this year intercepted up to 24m @ 1.03% Cu from 74m (oxide), per the 19 June 2026 announcement. The company considers McLeod Hill and Canyon to sit within a broader prospective copper corridor of approximately 3 km, significant portions of which remain untested.
Continuity of mineralisation between the two systems has not yet been established. For you as an investor, that makes the corridor a target rather than a defined resource.
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Next steps and expected news flow
AR’s planned work programme at McLeod Hill includes:
- Geological and resource modelling, incorporating the latest drilling and assessing its impact on the current Mineral Resource Estimate.
- Metallurgical test work on representative oxide and transition mineralisation, including bottle rolls and column testing, with a focus on low-Ca transitional material which may be amenable to heap leaching.
- Resource extension drilling of the northern, southern and depth extensions.
- McLeod Hill–Canyon corridor drilling, testing the prospective trend between the two known copper systems.
No timelines were given for these steps, so watch for updates on the modelling and metallurgical work. The announcement says only that the impact on the Mineral Resource Estimate will be assessed.
The bigger picture is a company working to grow its resource base near existing plants. AR operates dual processing facilities, Western Operations (Mt Kelly) and Eastern Operations (Rocklands), and holds total in-situ Mineral Resources of 62.5 Mt @ 0.73% Cu.
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