Austral Resources Australia is set to acquire the Rocklands copper mine near Cloncurry, supporting the company’s expansion into northwest Queensland.
Under the deed of company arrangement, Austral will pay $18 million in cash to acquire Rocklands.
The company will also complete an equity raising in which Rocklands shareholders will own at least 9.9 per cent of the issued capital of Austral, and 21 million conditional options will be subject to capital raise participation thresholds.
Austral has developed the Anthill copper mine, which utilises a contract fleet of excavators and trucks for mining and a road train fleet to deliver ore to the Mt Kelly SX/EW (solvent extraction-electrowinning) processing facility.
The company is also advancing the nearby Lady Annie, Cameron River and Miranda copper projects.
By bringing Rocklands – which has been on care and maintenance since late 2024 –under its wing, Austral has marked the beginning of its regional consolidation and growth strategy, which aims to establish a copper sulphide processing hub in the Eastern Isa region of Queensland.
“The acquisition of Rocklands is not just opportunistic – it is transformational,” Austral chairman David Newling said.
“It formalises the first step in our three-phase strategy to consolidate, expand, and ultimately control copper production and processing across the broader northwest Queensland region.”
The company will also gain access to a three-million-tonnes-per-annum sulphide processing facility, a defined resource base with expansion potential and underground mining viability, integration synergies with nearby known and potential feedstock sources, and potential toll treatment opportunities.
Austral said having a dual-processing footprint, comprising oxide from Lady Annie and sulphide from Rocklands, paves the way for Austral to become an integrated and flexible copper producer in Queensland.
“Rocklands gives us immediate processing scale, derisked growth optionality, and is a pivotal milestone in building the next-generation copper platform,” Newling said.
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