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AIC Mines Ltd (ASX: A1M) has bumped up overall mineral resources and reserves at its projects in North Queensland, including the historic Eloise copper mine plus the Jericho, Sandy Creek and Artemis plays, with the combined resource now sitting at more than 471 thousand tonnes of copper and nearly 354 thousand ounces of gold.
The resource updates were built from last year’s exploration and definition drilling programs and showed that the combined mineral resource figure across Eloise, Jericho, Sandy Creek and Artemis had increased to 22.9 million tonnes (Mt) grading 2.1 percent copper and 0.5 grams per tonne of gold, yielding 471,950t copper and 353,950 ounces of gold.
Combined ore reserves at the projects increased to 5.6Mt at 2.1 percent copper and 0.5 grams per tonne gold, for 119,200 tonnes of copper and 84,050 ounces of gold.
At the Eloise copper mine – which was first commissioned in 1996 and has historically produced 13 million tonnes of ore – the copper resource rose 13 percent to 154,750 tonnes of contained copper and the gold resource lifted 14 percent, to 135,250 ounces of contained gold.
Meanwhile, the Sandy Creek play – set 20 kilometres from Eloise – showed a mineral resource estimate of 23,500 tonnes of copper and 20,700 ounces of gold, while Artemis – 20 kilometres west of the copper mine – was estimated to contain 8,100 tonnes of copper and 21,100 ounces of gold.
AIC Mines managing director Aaron Colleran said the company’s drilling work at Eloise and the other projects was paying off in terms of the increased resource found.
“Resource definition and extension drilling has again replaced mining depletion at
Eloise. This means that our exploration and resource drilling at Eloise has again
outpaced mining – we ended the year with more resources and reserves than when
we started the year. This is a fabulous result,” he said.
“It’s also great to bring two of our Eloise regional prospects, Sandy Creek and Artemis,
onto the Mineral Resource ‘balance sheet’ as we start to better define the hub and
spoke mining strategy that will keep the Eloise processing plant crushing, grinding
and floating well beyond 2034.”
AIC Mines has been trading at 41.5c and was up by just over a per cent in early trade.
