Australian Mining spoke to True North Copper managing director Bevan Jones about how the company’s recent recapitalisation will spur future growth.
Building a business from the ground up is no small feat, especially in the Australian mining industry.
A company that understands this is True North Copper, a Queensland-focused copper explorer.
After a brief period in voluntary administration, True North is positioned to recommence trading on the ASX in January thanks to a $50.3 million fully underwritten conditional placement, which saw about 10 billion new shares issued at $0.005 per share.
The placement is part of True North’s broader recapitalisation to extinguish all debt.
“The conditional placement provides a solid foundation for our future,” True North managing director Bevan Jones told Australian Mining.
“Having navigated the challenges of the voluntary administration caused by our financiers withholding access to our planned working capital, we are ready for a fresh start.”
“The recapitalisation enables us to remove the financiers’ security on our assets, repay our debit facility and focus on exploring our two flagship projects, the Cloncurry copper project and Mt Oxide.
“There was $32.3 million of debt owed to Nebari Resources Credit Fund II LP and with that debt they had security over True North’s assets. Following the conditional placement, we’re now in a position where we no longer need to ramp up operations at Cloncurry to service that debt.”
Of the $32.3 million owed to Nebari, $3.9 million of this will be converted into True North equity.
Tembo Capital Holdings UK also committed $15 million to the recapitalisation, making it True North’s largest shareholder at about 29 per cent, while Regal Partners committed $6 million, making it the second-largest shareholder at 14 per cent.
Glencore, which has an offtake and toll-milling agreement with True North for the processing of up to one million tonnes of Cloncurry ore per annum, also subscribed for a 9.9 per cent stake.
“The recapitalisation has given us the opportunity to revise the direction of the organisation,” Jones said.
“At Cloncurry, True North has paused mining and will not continue the operational ramp up towards commercial production. Instead, our new strategy is to pause, drill and optimise our existing portfolio including further exploration and drilling to grow our current resource portfolio.”
True North also opened a share purchase plan (SPP) on December 4 to raise up to a further $5 million at the same offer price as the conditional placement.
The SPP gives existing shareholders an opportunity to participate in True North’s new strategy, which following the pause of its Cloncurry ramp-up, will include a reverse circulation drill program at the project, before commencing drilling at the Mt Oxide project once seasonal conditions permit.
As part of this plan, True North won’t undertake any work consistent with ramping up or commencing production at any of its assets for at least 12 months.
“The first part of our drilling program will involve several drill-ready targets at Cloncurry, including near-mine opportunities to grow resources, expand the current mine life and optimise the previous mine plan,” Jones said.
True North’s new exploration strategy ties into its long-term goal of becoming a world-class copper producer in the North West Minerals Province.
The key to achieving this goal? Jones points to establishing a proper foundation.
“Our exploration efforts have given us the opportunity to grow our knowledge and understanding of our asset portfolio to realise its potential scale,” Jones said.
“We have an existing mine operation around Cloncurry (the Great Australia Mine). We have a heap leach facility and solvent extraction plant, and the network required to carry out the toll mining activity to operate that system. In our previous operational plan, we were constrained to one million tonnes per annum, which was a restraint on the scale of the mining.
“Through our agreements with Glencore and our memorandum of understanding with Copper Resources Australia for its Rocklands operation, we intend to collaborate and maximise the existing assets in the area.”
With a 2024 geophysics program proving copper mineralisation exists in previously unexplored areas at Cloncurry, True North aims to complete infill drilling to unlock new deposits.
“We have highly prospective areas which will increase the scale of the existing Cloncurry reserve,” Jones said.
“Between the Great Australian Mine and the Taipan deposit, we will target four very prospective anomalies. The idea is to prove how big that system is. One of the anomalies looks like it’s the feeder system for the whole region as it’s open at depth.
“The geology team want to test those theories and establish a larger regional view of the mineralisation at Cloncurry.”
True North will also focus on exploring its Mt Oxide project, located in an underexplored region in Queensland.
“Mt Oxide is next to 29Metals’ Capricorn copper precinct,” Jones said. “Limited historical mining has been completed on our leases and none of this was in the past two decades.
“In the past 18 months we have conducted low-cost boots-on-the-ground exploration, including surface mapping, rock chip sampling and geophysics, using IP (induced polarisation) surveys which have improved our understanding of the 10km area along the Dorman Fault. The Vero deposit makes up just 1km of this area.
“Foundational exploration has shown that mineralisation is repeated along strike, so it’s not just one area of mineralisation.”
Drilling results at Mt Oxide have included a high-grade intersection of 66.5m at 4.95 per cent copper, one of the top 10 copper intercepts in the world in 2023.
“The 66.5m at 4.95 per cent copper intersection was an amazing result at Vero,” Jones said.
“Vero would likely be an underground development because it’s underneath a historic open pit. We are now looking to do more drilling within the area to focus on some of the newly identified nearer surface targets sitting under outcropping gossans that show zones of high chargeability in our recent IP surveys.”
Both Cloncurry and Mt Oxide are situated in the Mt Isa Inlier, one of Australia’s most iconic mining regions. Jones said copper mineralisation is expressing itself on the surface in multiple locations and rock chip sampling backed up the prospectivity of the area.
“(Prospector) Ernest Henry visited Cloncurry over 100 years ago searching for copper,” Jones said. “The Great Australian Mine was one of the mines he found, so people have known copper is in the area for over a century.
“Mt Isa is the centre of the whole region. Therefore, we’re able to leverage existing infrastructure, facilities, and the skills and knowledge of the local community.”
It’s no secret that copper has a variety of end uses in a green economy, whether it be through electrical distribution, equipment and devices, industrial machinery, wind turbines, solar panels and, of course, electric vehicles.
And with True North poised to grow its resources in one of the world’s premier copper districts, the company has an important role to play to feed the base metal’s growing demand.
“True North Copper is solely focused on growing value through copper exploration in North-West Queensland,” Jones said. “It’s a tier-one jurisdiction and we have over 1,500km2 of highly prospective leases within this world-class copper zone.
“If you’re interested in Australian copper, True North Copper is well placed to grow Queensland’s next major copper resource.”
This feature will appear in the February 2025 issue of Australian Mining.
