True North boosts QLD copper strike to more than 500m

Queensland-focused explorer True North Copper has boosted its Aquila mineralised system an additional 400m to the north, which now stretches more than 500-metres along strike.

The company’s phase-two drilling program tested a swag of new drill targets kicked-up from its recent induced polarisation (IP) survey across the Aquila copper-silver-cobalt discovery, part of the company’s Mt Oxide project about 140 kilometres north of Mt Isa in Queensland.

The program comprised 16 holes for 4338m along a 900m section of the 1330m-long Aquila Trend delineated from the IP survey.

Significant assay results from the first four holes of the program include a thick interval drilled 300m to the north of the Aquila discovery, delivering a 103m hit grading 0.53 per cent copper, 0.1 per cent cobalt and 2.6 grams per tonne (g/t) silver from just 19m depth. It included a higher-grade 10m section running at 1.76 per cent copper, 0.3 per cent cobalt and 6.7g/t silver from 106m.

A further hole drilled 400m along strike from Aquila returned a 72m stretch going 0.55 per cent copper, 0.16 per cent cobalt and 5.6g/t silver from 124m.

Higher-grade slices within the 72m intersection included 5m at 1.68 per cent copper, 0.19 per cent cobalt and 11.1g/t silver from 136m and 5m at a grade of 1.24 per cent copper, 0.37 per cent cobalt and 10.3g/t silver from a depth of 185m.

Management believes the impressive results provide a significant boost to the initial mineralisation unearthed at Aquila, confirming the Mt Oxide project as a large-scale copper system which screams both continuity and growth potential. The company says the results have strengthened its understanding of the mineralisation and point to district-scale potential at the site, with the system open both along strike and at depth.

The initial phase-one discovery drilling at Aquila produced a blistering 145m long hit at 0.75 per cent copper, 0.12 per cent cobalt and 2.9g/t silver from a shallow 28m and included a 53m stretch grading 1.18 per cent copper, 0.13 per cent cobalt and 3.6g/t silver from 86m.

Additional noteworthy results include a 30m intersection running 2.45 per cent copper from a shallow 20m intercept, including a 10m slice grading a stellar 5.31 per cent copper from 31m, and 16m at 1.25 per cent copper from 163m. The results would certainly have sharpened the focus on the potential of what True North may have uncovered.

Mt Oxide continues to deliver. Extending mineralisation to more than 500 metres along the Aquila Trend, with further assay results pending from the phase-two drilling program, confirms we’re uncovering a significant new copper-cobalt-silver system with great grade, real scale and growth potential.

Earlier this year, management engaged Australian Geophysical Services to complete a 5.6-line-km, seven-line IP survey at Aquila to extend and infill a Queensland Government-funded 2024 IP survey over regional Mt Oxide targets. The survey identified Aquila as a high-priority coincident chargeability-conductivity target.

The company believes there are three defined trends within Mt Oxide, consisting of its Aquila, Apollo and Acanthis deposits.

Notably, it says Apollo and Acanthis each display comparable or stronger geophysical anomalies than those already seen at the Aquila discovery.

The drilling at Mt Oxide will continue to focus on defining the northern and southern extents of the Aquila system. Additional holes drilled to the north and south will extend the strike length if assay results prove successful with the results for those outstanding holes expected later this month.

The company is planning further drilling at its promising Acanthis and Apollo trends as part of the phase-two program, which is expected to be completed in the next few weeks.

It is confident its systematic data-driven approach will deliver resource growth and create significant value at the Mt Oxide project.

True North is currently working on executing a three-stage growth strategy. It aims to optimise its Cloncurry copper project for a near-term restart, continue to aggressively grow the Mt Oxide resource and systematically explore its prospective tier-one regional targets at Chumvale, Marimo and its Salebury iron-oxide-copper-gold system.

Aquila is almost within a sling-shot of the company’s Vero copper-silver-cobalt resource at Mt Oxide. Vero contains a solid 15.03 million tonnes grading an impressive 1.46 per cent copper for 220,000t of the red metal and 10.59g/t silver to total more than 5 million ounces. It also has a handy 9.15Mt cobalt resource at a 0.23 per cent grade attached.

Mt Oxide also appears to offer significant underexplored potential. Outside of Aquila and its intriguing Mt Gordon target, the project’s other prospects have never been subjected to modern drilling equipment.

The northern section of the Aquila trend’s geophysical anomalies is linked to the historical Mt Gordon mine, which was in production in the 1950s and 1960s. Historical records suggest 824 tonnes of ore from the mine produced 90.4 tonnes of copper, implying an astonishing grade of about 11 per cent.

True North seems to find more copper across its suite of Queensland projects at virtually every turn with the potential growing following each drill program. And, with the copper price scaling a steady uptrend over the past five years, the company may have chosen the perfect metal to chase in the sunshine state.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au