True North Copper has expanded its flagship Cloncurry copper project in northwest Queensland by acquiring the adjacent Mongoose resource after Glencore declined to exercise its right of first refusal. The deal involves purchasing ASX-listed Renegade Exploration's 22% interest in the Carpentaria Joint Venture, uniting the Mongoose and Taipan copper-gold deposits.
The Mongoose deposit holds an inferred resource of 3.1 million tonnes grading 0.55% copper and 0.07 g/t gold, adjacent to True North's Taipan resource of 5.2 million tonnes at 0.57% copper and 0.13 g/t gold. The company now controls a contiguous mineralised corridor that it believes can be optimised into a larger, more efficient open-pit mining operation.
True North gains access to recent drilling from 2023 that intersected significant mineralisation, including 107 metres at 0.51% copper and 0.09 g/t gold from 55 metres downhole, and 89 metres at 0.45% copper and 0.08 g/t gold from 16 metres. The deal also includes exploration targets such as Magazine, Mongoose West, and Cloncurry Queen.
The acquisition, valued at $2.88 million, will be incorporated into the Cloncurry copper project's prefeasibility study, due in the final quarter of this year. The company says the timing is critical as copper trades at historic highs driven by demand from the AI revolution and supply constraints.
Beyond Cloncurry, True North's portfolio includes the Mt Oxide project, where recent success at Vero and Aquila discoveries supports a staged development concept. The company plans to evaluate the combined deposits as part of a broader development framework while pursuing future resource growth.
