Austral Resources (ASX: AR1) says drilling has extended copper mineralisation at McLeod Hill to more than one kilometre of strike, well beyond the roughly 470 metres covered by the existing mineral resource estimate. Twenty holes were completed and 12 returned significant copper intersections, extending the system about 340 metres south and 160 metres north of the resource, open along strike in both directions and incompletely tested at depth. Standout results included 5m at 2.32 percent copper from 70m in hole MTKC0747, 20m at 0.59 percent from 67m in MTKC0748 (including 5m at 1.40 percent), 8m at 1.18 percent from 43m in MTKC0749 (including 5m at 1.63 percent) and 15m at 0.83 percent from 70m in MTKC0750.
The campaign followed a revised structural interpretation that found historical holes had been collared too close to a faulted basement contact between the Gunpowder Creek Formation and older basement rocks, making them ineffective tests of the mineralisation. The new holes were repositioned and hit. Much of the newly identified mineralisation is shallow oxide and transitional material, with malachite, azurite and chrysocolla observed near surface, and it sits within existing mining leases about 4.5 kilometres from Austral’s Western Operations processing facility.
McLeod Hill currently hosts 1.68 million tonnes at 0.64 percent copper (590,000 tonnes indicated at 0.68 percent, 1.09 million tonnes inferred at 0.61 percent). The next phase folds the results into the geological and resource models, advances metallurgical test work and tests a broader roughly 3-kilometre corridor between McLeod Hill and the nearby Canyon prospect, where earlier drilling returned up to 24m at 1.03 percent copper. The brownfield program complements a wider Queensland growth push: Austral has secured A$15 million for studies into expanding its Rocklands processing operation, and its proposed A$80.7 million acquisition of Hammer Metals is expected to add further regional copper resources.