Indo Pacific readies PNG properties for drilling

Mineral occurrences at two exploration concessions in Papua New Guinea are being trenched and sampled as owner Indo Pacific Resources (ASE) moves ahead on planned diamond drilling.

The company, which has five exploration concessions in the South Pacific country, is mounting a large work program on all its land holdings but has concentrated its early efforts on the West New Britain concession in the Bismarck Islands and the Ambunti concession in the northern part of the main island.

The Kavola prospect on the West New Britain concession now has a bulldozer on site to reopen access roads and prepare drill sites, and to support a program of trenching and sampling. Mineralization occurs over roughly 1 sq. km in what appears to be a structurally complex epithermal system. Earlier work by BHP Minerals included trenching and reverse-circulation drilling, and Indo Pacific’s plans include downdip testing of the known mineralization on the property.

Chip and channel samples from outcrops newly exposed by landslips at Kavola had gold concentrations ranging from 0.75 to 6.1 grams per tonne over widths of 4 to 5 metres in nine sample locations.

The Salumei prospect is in the Ambunti concession, and recent reconnaissance work, including geochemical sampling of stream sediments and their heavy-mineral concentrates, has led to the discovery of three gold occurrences on the edges of a large prophyry complex. The company is following up with soil sampling, geological mapping and trench channel sampling.

Also on the Ambunti concession, the company will be moving a bulldozer onto the Yerikai prospect in February, late in the wet season. The bulldozer will open an access road from the Sepik River and cut trenches across the surface gold occurrences.

Other concessions are receiving reconnaissance-level attention in the form of mapping and stream-sediment sampling. In the interior, near Lake Kopiago, a reconnaissance stream sediment program has led the company to an area of limestones and calcareous sandstones and shales, where sediments and heavy mineral concentrates were found to have anomalous gold concentrations. Also near Lake Kopiago, geochemical and induced-polarization targets, discovered in 1992, will be drilled in the coming season.