First oxide ore delivered from Wallace North

True North Copper (ASX: TNC) has marked a significant milestone at its Cloncurry copper project (CCP) in Queensland with the first oxide ore delivered from the Wallace North deposit.

Last week, True North began transportation of the ore from Wallace North to the Great Australian Mine (GAM) crushing facility with irrigation of the ore to begin in October.

True North managing director Bevan Jones commented on the milestone.

“Our team at Wallace North has continued to advance mining activities on schedule with the current CCP mine plan,” he said.

“TNC’s progress towards becoming Australia’s next copper producer has taken significant steps forward since our previous Wallace North update, with 6000t of oxide ore having now been mined and transportation of this ore to the GAM crusher underway.

“We expect to commence stacking of this ore on the leach pad in October, the next milestone in this process that we are now targeting.”

Since announcing the start of mining activities at Wallace North in July, True North has mined around 155k billion cubic metres of overburden.

True North has secured binding offtake and toll milling agreements with Glencore International for 100% of copper concentrate produced at Cloncurry and toll milling of up to 1mtpa of ore.

Under this agreement, sulphide ore will be transported to a third-party concentrator for toll treatment.