History
Austral Resources purchased Lady Annie Operations (inclusive of all tenements and assets) from its predecessor CST Minerals in July 2019.
Lady Annie has been an operational copper mine for over 10 years. All 8 deposits under the Lady Annie Operations project are located on granted mining leases north of the city of Mount Isa and are easily accessible via the Mount Barkly Highway.
Historically, the operation has produced up to 30ktpa of copper cathode from 4 open-cut pits:
- Lady Annie
- Lady Brenda
- Mount Clarke
- Flying Horse
Since acquiring the asset, Austral has increased efficiencies and optimised mining operations. A remnant mining project was carried out from March 2020 until January 2021 where open pit mines were completed at Lady Brenda East and Lady Brenda West and cutbacks were completed at Flying Horse South and Flying Horse East. Over 890Kt of ore was mined at a grade of 0.85% Cu for approximately 7.6Kt of copper metal.
Austral has a strong pipeline of projects at various stages of development. The Anthill project is the most advanced of the projects with several studies completed resulting in an ore reserve of 5.1Mt grading 0.94% Cu. Final approvals for development are now complete. Austral plans to commence open-pit mining at the Anthill deposit in Q4 2021.