Australian mining companies Emmerson Resources, CuFe, and Tennant Minerals have formed a strategic alliance to jointly develop copper, gold, and critical metals projects in the Tennant Creek region of the Northern Territory.

The collaboration aims to overcome the economic challenges of independent development by pooling resources, which could lead to more substantial and financially viable projects.

This alliance is expected to change the scale of potential developments in Tennant Creek, benefitting the companies involved and the local community.

The combined mineral resources of the alliance amount to 7.3 million tonnes (t) at 0.6g per tonne of gold and 1.7% copper, which is approximately 145,000oz of gold and 127,000t of copper.

Recent discoveries such as Tennant Mineral's Bluebird project, have shown high-grade intersections, including up to 61.8m at 2.3% copper and 0.4g per tonne of gold.

Emmerson's Jasper Hills and Hermitage prospects have also yielded significant results.

Tennant Minerals managing director Vincent Algar said: “The production history of Tennant Creek copper and gold supports the shared facility model we plan to investigate in this collaboration.

“The strategy will provide a shorter pathway to production and incentivise TMS to continue its exploration effort targeting further discoveries like Bluebird on our tenements.”

The alliance plans to adopt a hub-and-spoke development and operational model, reminiscent of the historical Tennant Creek Mineral Field, with centralised processing facilities for the proposed shared facility.

The dedicated multiuser facility would be designed to process copper and associated metals, including gold.

This proposed facility would operate independently from the carbon-in-leach gold-only facility currently being constructed by Emmerson's joint venture partner TCMG.

The partnership has initiated a review to explore options for an initial scoping study, with ambitions to progress to a pre-feasibility study.

CuFe executive director Mark Hancock said: “We are pleased to have signed a Strategic Alliance Agreement to investigate the potential for a single multiuser processing facility for copper, gold and critical metals for our Mineral Resources and others recent high-grade exploration discoveries in the Tennant Creek region of the Northern Territory.”

In August this year, CuFe finalised a binding term sheet to sell its iron ore rights at the JWD mine in Western Australia to Newcam for A$12m ($7.86m) in cash.