Copper developer Austral Resources on Friday announced an agreement to acquire Glencore’s Lady Loretta mine in Queensland, executing a transaction first foreshadowed by a nonbinding agreement signed in July last year.

The acquisition gives Austral control of the Lady Loretta mining leases and associated infrastructure adjacent to its Lady Annie copper project. The operation has produced high-grade zinc/lead ore since 2012, with mining historically undertaken at about 1.6-million tonnes a year. 

While zinc mining at Lady Loretta has now ended, the company plans to leverage the tenements to support copper expansion and strengthen its longer-term copper production pipeline.

The transaction consolidates tenure around Lady Annie, unlocking near-mine copper opportunities that were previously constrained by mining lease boundaries. These include the potential for a pit wall cutback at Lady Annie into the Lady Loretta lease area, as well as strike and down-plunge extensions of copper mineralisation onto ground that has not previously been developed for copper.

The company expects the acquired leases to provide short- and medium-term copper feed that could be processed through its Mt Kelly processing plant, supporting its broader north-west Queensland copper consolidation strategy.

Completion is scheduled for January 31, 2026, subject to the satisfaction of customary conditions precedent, including regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Under the terms of the agreement, Austral will acquire 100% of Noranda Pacific, the owner and operator of the Lady Loretta mine and associated infrastructure. Glencore will pay $40-million (about A$59.9-million) to Austral at completion, with about $9.6-million to be retained to cash-back the estimated rehabilitation bond. This results in net cash proceeds of about $30.4-million (A$45.5-million), lifting Austral’s unrestricted cash balance at completion to about $65-million.

Austral will grant Glencore a 2.5% net smelter return royalty on all copper oxides and copper sulphides produced from the tenements. 

Austral chairperson David Newling described the transaction as strategically important for the company.

“The acquisition of Lady Loretta consolidates tenure around Lady Annie and provides both short-term ore feed through the cutback and longer-term ore feed through the mineralisation extension. Importantly, the transaction is structured to significantly strengthen our balance sheet while preserving substantial development upside.”

He added that, with the three pillars of Austral’s north-west Queensland consolidation strategy now complete, the company’s focus would shift to execution.

“Our focus turns to disciplined execution advancing near-mine opportunities at Lady Annie, progressing Rocklands toward restart in 2027, and building (including through M&A) a long-term, multi-asset copper business capable of producing around 50 000 t/y of copper metal in north-west Queensland,” Newling said.

Austral re-emerged from a prolonged ASX suspension in November last year, following a recapitalisation and the adoption of a revised consolidation strategy. With the Lady Loretta transaction, the company says it has completed the three key pillars of that strategy, positioning it to pursue its ambition of becoming Australia’s next midtier copper producer, with the capability to process both copper oxides and sulphides in the same region.