Australia’s Aurora Gold has decided to go ahead with the acquisition of the Wafi copper-gold exploration tenements in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe Province.
The tenements cover 182 sq. km and are 55 km northwest of the company’s 50%-owned Morobe gold project. They are subject to a front-end sum and royalty on future gold and copper production, should Aurora develop a mine at Wafi.
In March, Aurora signed a deal that would allow the company to buy the tenements. The company reserved the right to quash the deal in the event that it decided not to develop Morobe. Aurora has now waived that condition and will go ahead with the acquisition.
The Wafi tenements are reported to contain an indicated and inferred porphyry copper-gold resource of 100 million tonnes grading 1.3% copper and 0.6 gram gold per tonne at a cutoff grade of 0.5% copper. In addition there is an indicated and inferred epithermal gold resource of 26.1 million tonnes grading 3.5 grams gold at cutoff grades of between 1 and 3 grams.
The epithermal gold mineralization is associated with an extensive hydrothermal system centred about a diatreme complex that measures about 800 metres in diameter. Aurora believes there is potential to increase the grade and tonnage of the resource through the extension of known mineralized zones and the location of new mineralization adjacent to the diatreme.
The tenements also contain a number of gold-in-stream-sediment anomalies which have not been tested.
Following a review of previous exploration, Aurora plans to launch a program of drilling aimed at extending the known gold resource and testing several gold anomalies.
Aurora’s nearby Morobe project is in the final stages of a bankable feasibility study aimed at outlining a resource of more than 5 million oz. gold-equivalent.
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