It is a spectacular land grab even for a company the size of Rio Tinto.
The mining giant drills three holes in the Paterson Range in Western Australia in December 2017 and jumps the size of its footprint in the region from 1000 square kilometres to 12,000 square kilometre in less than 12 months.
Rio tried until this week to play dead whenever asked about the flurry of activity in the Paterson, but the fact it was onto a copper whopper became one of the worst kept secrets in mining.
Rio Tinto’s copper whopper is finally out in the open