Evolution Mining has revealed the expansive potential of its Ernest Henry mine in Queensland, after recent drill results highlighted the asset’s important copper future.
The company has intersected mineralisation within and below the pre-feasibility study (PFS) mine life extension area, including 157m at 1.26 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 1.62 per cent copper.
Evolution also hit 102m at 1.06g/t gold and 1.39 per cent copper, and 90.8m at 1.42g/t and 1.54 per cent copper during a recent drill program at Ernest Henry.
These results will support the operation’s mine-life-extension PFS, which Evolution hopes to complete in the first half of the 2022–23 financial year. This could realise a further 4–5 years of mine life to the project’s 875mrl (metres relative level).
“Ernest Henry is a world-class operation and a key asset in the Evolution portfolio,” Evolution Mining executive chair Jake Klein said.
“The outstanding copper-gold grades and widths in the new drilling results demonstrate the exciting potential for mineralisation to extend up-plunge and at depth.”
The surface drilling holes targeted the northern and southern extensions of the operation, with the northern fan intersecting significantly wide mineralisation below the PFS level.
The location and width of mineralisation intersected in these drillholes is significant, as they lie outside the current mineralisation interpretation. Encouragingly, the width of these intersections increases the potential for an up-plunge extension of mineralisation.
A follow-up drilling program is currently underway to test the continuity of mineralisation.
Ernest Henry produced 14,469 tonnes of copper in the September quarter of 2022, slightly down from the quarter before due to a scheduled 60-hour shutdown of the concentrator in September.
In August, Evolution announced a 28 per cent increase in Ernest Henry’s copper resource to 1.13 million tonnes.
According to a recent report from S&P Global, copper’s role in building electric vehicles (EVs) and trucks, transmission lines, and solar and wind farms will double demand for the metal in the coming decades.
“Copper – the ‘metal of electrification’ – is essential to all energy transition plans,” the report stated. “But the potential supply–demand gap is expected to be very large as the transition proceeds.
“Substitution and recycling will not be enough to meet the demands of EVs, power infrastructure, and renewable generation.
“Copper demand is projected to grow from 25 million metric tons (MMt) today to about 50 MMt by 2035, a record-high level that will be sustained and continue to grow to 53 MMt by 2050.”
It’s assets like Ernest Henry that will be critical in satiating future copper demand.