Miners Scramble For Piece Of Cloncurry Action

The Age

Tuesday June 15, 1993

Barry FitzGerald

Companies big and small are continuing to chase increased exposure to the Cloncurry copper belt in north Queensland despite copper's recent price slump.

Yesterday, MIM announced a $15million deal to acquire the Eloise copper/gold deposit from BHP Minerals, while West Australian Metals NL snared an option over the high-grade Hidden Treasure deposit.

The Eloise deposit is 68kilometres south-east of Cloncurry and 195kilometres by road from Mount Isa.

MIM said Eloise had the potential to become an underground mine providing copper concentrate for smelting at its Mount Isa operations.

The managing director, Mr Norm Fussell, said MIM would test drill the deposit over the next six months before deciding in December whether to finalise the acquisition.

The company will pay an initial $500,000 and a further $14.5million if it proceeds.

No estimate of the resource at Eloise was given, but its in-situ value is clearly more than the deal's $15 million value, the equivalent of only 5530 tonnes of copper at current prices.

Meanwhile, West Australian Metals looked to have pulled off a coup by stamping its foot on control of the Hidden Treasure deposit, 100kilometres north-east of Cloncurry and 45 kilometres east of the Gunpowder copper mine of Adelaide Brighton Cement.

Oxide ore from the lode was mined on a tribute basis over three years by the private vendors, with smelter returns indicating an ore grade of more than 10per cent copper.

The operation was closed when MIM decided to stop toll treating oxide ores. West Australian Metals is confident a mineable reserve of at least 100,000 tonnes could support a highly profitable heap-leach operation.

© 1993 The Age

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