Qualla: Eloise Copper Mine

Eloise Copper Mine: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Some mines close with a bang and a headline. Eloise just goes quiet. Tucked into the red plains about 60 kilometres southeast of Cloncurry in north-west Queensland, this underground copper mine has shut down and started up more than once across its life, riding the brutal arithmetic of metal prices. When copper is cheap, the lights go off and the workings fill with silence. When copper climbs, they switch back on. Right now, with the world racing to electrify, Eloise is not just running - it is digging deeper and reaching for more.

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Eloise Copper Mine: Found, Worked, Abandoned

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Eloise deposit was discovered in 1987, in country already crisscrossed by more than a century of prospecting since Ernest Henry first struck copper near Cloncurry in 1867. Mining proper began in 1996. Then, in 2008, the mine slipped into what the industry calls "care and main...

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Eloise Copper Mine: Brought Back to Life

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In early 2011, with copper prices recovering, Eloise reopened and the ore began moving again. A decade later, in November 2021, the mine changed hands: a company called AIC Mines bought it from FMR Investments for 27 million dollars, betting that the deposit had plenty of life le...

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Eloise Copper Mine: Digging Deeper

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eloise's next chapter lies a few kilometres to the south, at a deposit called Jericho. In 2024 work began on a three-kilometre underground drive to connect Jericho to the existing Eloise mine, while the surface processing plant is being expanded to handle the extra ore that the n...

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Eloise Copper Mine: Why Copper, Why Now

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eloise's revival is part of a much bigger story. Copper is the metal of electrification - it carries current through motors, cables, solar farms, and the wiring of electric vehicles - and as the world tries to move off fossil fuels, demand for it keeps rising. Mines that once loo...

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Eloise Copper Mine: Life on the Plains

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is no town at Eloise, only the mine and the heat. Workers reach it down the Landsborough and Flinders Highways or fly in to Elrose Airport, a strip named for the old Elrose Homestead that gave its name to the pastoral run before anyone knew copper lay beneath the cattle. Th...

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