Altona told the ASX they had excellent drill results from three targets about 25 kilometres south of Little Eva as part of a 30 hole RC drilling program late last year.

Altona said the program was designed to test new copper-gold in soil anomalies at the Companion, Veiled and Quamby prospects.  

The prospects add to an emerging cluster of copper-gold discoveries south of the proposed Little Eva mine development at Cloncurry which includes the Hobby and Reaper prospects.

Altona said the drilling was shallow and reconnaissance in nature and intersected both oxide and sulphide mineralisation.

“Of note were the higher gold grades compared to the deposits included in the mine plan for the Little Eva development,” Altona told the ASX.

“High silver values at Quamby and high cobalt values at Veiled were also recorded.”

The company said the rocks intersected were typical of iron-oxide-copper-gold deposits.

The Cloncurry Copper Project has estimated mineral resources of 1.67 million tonnes of copper and 0.43 million ounces of gold.

It is envisaged that a 7 million tonnes per annum open pit copper-gold mine and concentrator will be developed at the Project.

The development is permitted with proposed annual production(1) of 39,000 tonnes of copper and 17,200 ounces of gold for a minimum of 14 years with a Definitive Feasibility Study refreshed in July 2017.

In November 2017 Altona announced the intention to merge with Copper Mountain Mining Corporation, a large Canadian copper producer, to deliver the Cloncurry Copper Project.

In December Altona announced it had has executed an offtake agreement with Glencore for the sale of copper/gold concentrates from the Cloncurry project.

Glencore would take all the mine’s production for a five-year term, with delivery set at the project’s mine gate.

The Cloncurry copper project is situated between MMG’s Dugald River zinc mine and Glencore’s Ernest Henry copper mine, about 60km north Cloncurry and about 180km from Glencore’s copper smelter in Mount Isa.