Copper
Prospectivity
The Territory has a strong copper exploration industry, with a large number of companies exploring for copper in a range of greenfield and brownfield settings. There is no current copper production, but the Jervois copper project in the Aileron Province has all mining approvals in place.
The Warramunga Province hosts the Tennant Creek mineral field, where the majority of the Territory’s copper production has been sourced from ironstone-hosted gold-copper-bismuth deposits. In 2025, almost 500 000 tonnes of contained copper was added to the resource inventory from new and historic drilling. Significant copper-gold resources remain in the Tennant Creek field, and the associated Rover field, 70km to the southwest. Rover 1 is a rapidly advancing project currently in approvals process. Substantial exploration activity for copper-gold is also underway in the informally named ‘East Tennant’ region, in the Barkly Tableland east of Tennant Creek, where prospective geology is at explorable depths. Multiple companies are investigating the potential for copper production from the region. Tennant Mines are scoping copper production from Warrego and other deposits in the Tennant Creek mineral field and a Strategic Alliance comprising Tennant Minerals Ltd, Emmerson Resources Ltd and CuFe Ltd are assessing the potential for a multi-user copper, gold and critical minerals facility.
The Aileron Province is a significant emerging greenfields copper province. The most significant known deposit and most advanced copper project is at Jervois, 300km northeast of Alice Springs. Jervois has all environmental and mining approvals in place and KGL Resources Ltd is preparing for a Final Investment Decision (FID) in 2026. Mineralisation at Jervois occurs in a series of strata-bound, subvertical sulfide-rich deposits. There are numerous other copper deposits in the Aileron Province, with a variety of mineralisation styles. In 2025 Litchfield Minerals Pty Ltd returned several broad intercepts of copper-zinc mineralisation in early-stage exploration drilling, subsequently the company was selected for the 2026 BHP Xplor global accelerator cohort to accelerate discovery at Oonagalabi.
The greater McArthur Basin, which includes the Palaeo-Mesoproterozoic McArthur and Birrindudu basins and Tomkinson Province, and equivalent successions in the South Nicholson Basin and Lawn Hill Platform have substantial and largely untested potential for sediment-hosted copper mineralisation. The only significant copper production to date has been from breccia pipes at the Redbank deposits in the south eastern McArthur Basin, but exploration activity is currently focussed across large areas, seeking larger scale sediment-hosted copper systems. South 32 Ltd are undertaking regional scale greenfields exploration programs for sediment-hosted copper in joint venture with Encounter Resources Ltd.
In the Pine Creek Orogen, there are deformed sediment-hosted deposits, with the largest known copper resource at the Browns shale-hosted polymetallic deposit near Batchelor.
Read the copper factsheet PDF (1.2 MB)
Projects
| Geological Province | Name | Resource | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pine Creek Orogen | Browns Oxide | 2.64 Mt @ 1.02% Cu, 0.12% Co, 0.1% Ni | Northern Territories Resources Pty Ltd |
| Geological Province | Name | Resource | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aileron Province | Jervois | 28.95 Mt @ 1.76% Cu, 24.8 g/t Ag, 0.23 g/t Au | KGL Resources Ltd |
| Geological Province | Name | Resource | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warramunga Province | Rover 1 | 7.86 Mt @ 1.35 g/t Au, 1.24% Cu, 0.07% Co, 0.11% Bi, 23.97% magnetite | Castile Resources Ltd |
| Pine Creek Orogen | Hayes Creek | 4.08 Mt @ 1.81 g/t Au, 0.25% Cu, 4.35% Zn, 0.91% Pb, 124 g/t Ag | Patronus Resources Ltd |
| Davenport Province | Hatches Creek | 12 Mt @ 0.17% WO3, 0.12% Cu 6.1 Mt @ 0.29% Cu outside of tungsten domains | Tungsten Mining NL |
| Geological Province | Name | Resource | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warramunga Province | Gecko | 18.39 Mt @ 2.01% Cu, 0.25 g/t Au, 2.98 g/t Ag, 0.08% Bi | CuFe Ltd |
| Warramunga Province | Orlando | 6 Mt @ 1.16% Cu, 1.49 g/t Au, 0.07% Bi, 1.37 g/t Ag | CuFe Ltd |
| Warramunga Province | Warrego | 16.5Mt @ 1.33% Cu, 1.1g/t Au | Tennant Mines |
| Warramunga Province | Explorer 108 | 5.7Mt @ 0.36% Cu | Castile Resources Ltd |
| Warramunga Province | Bluebird | 1.58Mt @ 1.3% Cu, 1.04 g/t Au, 2.67 g/t Ag, 839 g/t Bi | Tennant Minerals Ltd |
| Geological Province | Name | Resource | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aileron Province | Home of Bullion | 3.1 Mt @ 1.7% Cu, 2.0% Zn, 1.1% Pb, 35 g/t Ag, 0.17 g/t Au, 0.02% Co | Eastern Metals Ltd |
| Aileron Province | Bonya | 0.23 Mt @ 2% Cu | Thor Energy PLC |
| Aileron Province | Hendrix | 2.6 Mt @ 6.7% Zn, 0.9% Cu, 1.5% Pb, 35 g/t Ag | Trinex Minerals Ltd |
| Aileron Province | Johnnies Reward | 2.2 Mt @ 0.4% Cu, 0.7 g/t Au | Aureus Mining Ltd |
| Irindina Province | Basil | 26.5 Mt @ 0.57% Cu, 0.05% Co | Typhon Minerals Pty Ltd |
| McArthur Basin | Sorrel | 8.4 Mt @ 1.1% Cu | Golden Horse Minerals Ltd |
| Pine Creek Orogen | Area 55 | 12.2 Mt @ 0.49% Cu, 0.14% Co, 0.14% Ni | Northern Territories Resources Pty Ltd |
| Pine Creek Orogen | Browns Sulfide | 45.1 Mt @ 0.35% Cu, 3.74% Pb, 0.73% Zn, 0.09% Co, 0.07% Ni | Northern Territories Resources Pty Ltd |
| Warramunga Province | Explorer 142 | 0.176 Mt @ 5.21% Cu, 0.21 g/t Au | Castile Resources Ltd |
| Geological Province | Name | Exploration results | Company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aileron Province | Jervois |
Rockface: 5.08 m @ 6.74% Cu, 330.63 g/t Ag, 5.36 g/t Au, 18.41% Zn, 8.42% Pb Reward: 4.41 m @ 6.40% Cu, 74.79 g/t Ag, 0.33 g/t Au, 7.5m @ 2.24% Cu, 15.4 g/t Ag, 0.17 g/t Au Deeps: 18.9 m @ 1.99% Cu, 17.43 g/t Ag, 0.32 g/t Au, 5 m @ 2.61% Cu, 18.54 g/t Ag and 0.26 g/t Au Bellbird North: 2.76 m @ 0.61% Cu, 82.12 g/t Ag, 0.04 g/t Au, 6.34% Pb, 6.87% Zn | KGL Resources Ltd |
| Aileron Province | Oonagalabi | 91 m @ 0.9% Cu, 1.3% Zn 14 m @ 1.32% Cu, 0.86% Zn, 7.17 g/t Ag, 0.17 g/t Au | Litchfield Minerals Ltd |
| Davenport Province | Hatches Creek | 37 m @ 0.3% Cu, 0.14% WO3 | Tungsten Mining NL |
| Warramunga Province | Hermitage | 17 m @ 0.72% Cu, 0.1% Co 53 m @ 0.26% Cu, 0.1% Co, 0.05% Bi | Emmerson Resources Ltd |
| Warramunga Province | Warrego East | 9 m @ 205 ppm Cu, 7.8 g/t Bi | Metals Australia Ltd |
More information
- McGloin, 2017. The significance of metaexhalites, seafloor alteration and retrograde processes for metamorphosed mineral deposits: examples of distinct alteration styles from the Aileron Province. AGES 2017 Proceedings.
- Mayes and Bennett, 2017. The Rockface copper discovery at Jervois. AGES 2017 Proceedings.
- Davidson et al 2017. Controls on copper mineralising processes in the central McArthur Basin, NT: a progress report on the Coppermine Creek Prospect. AGES 2017 Proceedings.
- McGloin et al 2016. Palaeoproterozoic copper mineralisation in the Aileron Province: new findings on temporal, spatial and genetic features. AGES 2017 Proceedings.
- Ahmad et al, 2006. Economic geology of the Rum Jungle mineral field. NTGS Report 19.
- Hussey et al, 2005. Geology and origin of some Cu-Pb-Zn (-Au-Ag) deposits in the Strangways metamorphic complex, Arunta Region, NT. NTGS Report 17.
- Search GEMIS for further NTGS reports on copper.
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