2022 Annual General Meeting Chairman's Address
Brisbane, May 12, 2022 AEST (ABN Newswire) - I welcome you to the inaugural Annual General Meeting of copper producer Austral Resources Australia Ltd (
ASX:AR1). The company has made great progress on several fronts:
- Ore is being mined and transported from Anthill and ready to be loaded to the leach pads for processing.
- The exploration team have completed a large geophysics and geochemistry review and we expect to start drilling our high priority targets in the weeks to come.
- We raised USD$15m in a presale off-take agreement with Glencore which contributes significantly to our cash flows allowing us to expand our exploration program to $10m.
- From a technical perspective we are engaging with a metallurgical group to test a heap leach process for sulphides, which if it proves effective, will have a major positive impact on the company.
- Our employees have continued to maintain an outstanding safety record during a busy preproduction period.
- The board has embraced ESG principles and will enact policies to accommodate the environmental, social and government challenges we face.
On behalf of the Board I wish to thank our employees and contractors for collaborating and delivering our new Anthill Copper Mine and refurbished plant facilities to schedule.
Finally, I would like to thank all our shareholders and stakeholders for their continued support, and we look forward to our production achieving that significant milestone of 1,000 tonnes of copper cathode per month soon.
About Austral Resources Australia Ltd
Austral Resources Australia Ltd (ASX:AR1) is a copper cathode producer operating in the Mt Isa region, Queensland, Australia. Its Mt Kelly copper oxide heap leach and solvent extraction/electrowinning (SXEW) plant has a nameplate capacity of 30,000tpa of copper cathode. Austral is developing its Anthill oxide copper mine which has an Ore Reserve of 5.06Mt at 0.94% Cu. The Company expects to produce 40,000t of copper cathode over a four-year period from mid-2022.
Austral owns a significant copper inventory with a JORC compliant Mineral Resource Estimate of 60Mt at 0.7% Cu and 1,940km2 of highly prospective exploration tenure in the heart of the Mt Isa district, a world class copper and base metals province. The Company is implementing an intensive exploration and development programme designed to extend the life of mine and increase then review options to commercialise its copper resources.
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