Rio Tinto farms out PNG porphyry

Rio Tinto (rtp-n) has farmed out a minority interest in the Wafi copper-gold porphyry in Papua New Guinea to an Australian firm.

The British giant has given Provincial Gold Fields the opportunity to acquire a 45% interest in the project in return for expanding known resources.

Provincial Gold Fields and its parent company, Australian Gold Fields, have agreed to earn a 45% interest by spending US$45 million over five years, including a minimum of US$15 million in the first two years.

Rio Tinto acquired the 240-sq.-km property in Morobe province from its merger with CRA.

The Wafi project contains an indicated and inferred resource of about 100 million tonnes grading 1.3% copper and 0.6 gram gold per tonne. The project also contains a 2-million-oz. gold resource in Zone A, which, based on a 1-gram cutoff, amounts to 32 million tonnes grading 2 grams.

Recent work extended Zone A farther to the west and located additional high-grade mineralization.