Augustus secures elephant country in mineral rich PNG

Augustus Minerals has expanded its push into PNG, home to multiple elephant sized mineral deposits, with an exploration licence (EL) application covering 1906 sq km in the prospective Vanapa River region, 35km north of Port Moresby.

The application follows a recent site visit by management, where local artisanal miners were extracting decent amounts of alluvial gold within the application area, part of the 2300km long New Guinea Metallogenic Belt.

The New Guinea Metallogenic Belt is one of the richest gold-copper mineral belts globally, hosting monstrous deposits like PanAust’s 12 billion pounds of copper and 10 million-ounce Frieda River project and Barrick Mining-New Porgera’s 32 million-ounce Porgera gold project.

Newmont Mining and Harmony Gold’s joint-venture Wafi-Golpu project, also within the belt, hosts a ridiculous 22 billion pounds of copper and 23 million-ounces of gold. 

Harmony, listed on the New York Stock Exchange and South Africa’s JSE, also hold the Hidden Valley gold-silver operation north of Wafi-Golpu. A resource of 2.16 million-ounces of gold and 30 million-ounces of silver at that project further highlights that Augustus has moved into elephant country.

The application licence area is within the Kira Koiari District in the Central Province of PNG and is also 40km from the Tolokuma gold mine, which contains a resource of 1.5 million ounces at a stellar high-grade of 13 grams per tonne (g/t) gold.

Augustus Minerals chief executive officer James Warren said: “We are very pleased to have been invited into the Hira Koiari District by the local landowners and presents Augustus with a rare and unique opportunity to conduct true frontier exploration in an area synonymous with giant orebodies. The application area has had little to no modern exploration activity and we’re excited to be the first company to be allowed to explore the region over such a large area.”

The geology in the region near the Vanapa River site consists of mainly low-sulphidation style epithermal systems, with all known gold deposits containing high-level fissure veins that are formed in a classic epithermal-porphyry environment. Typically, the high-level fissures include massive quartz and quartz-sulphide veins, silification, stringers and breccia zones.

Augustus, through its purchase of ACM Contract Mining PNG has also applied for an EL application covering the massive Mt Kare gold project.

Mt Kare sits about 600kms north-west of Port Moresby and has been the subject of a legal bunfight in recent years.

Back in 2015, ASX-listed Indochine had control of Mt Kare and had reputedly spent some $125m at the site, with many sitting up and taking notice when it revealed a resource about that time of 42.5m tonnes going 1.54 g/t gold and 13.5 g/t silver for a whopping 2.11m ounces of gold and 18.4m ounces of silver. 

There is no evidence pointing to any of those ounces having been mined to this day.

Indochine subsequently ran into financial trouble and lost several court battles to retain the Mt Kare leases and there has been a flood of mining hopefuls trying to obtain the prized ground ever since.

The PNG Government’s Mineral Resources Authority (MRA) has been working its way through the interested parties, looking for a suitable company with both the money and mining expertise to take the project to the next level.

The MRA deals with each application in the order in which it was lodged and has already waved off the first party in line. 

The next company hoping to step up to the plate and prove its credentials is a private company by the name of Tribune Mt Kare Gold Ltd, with Augustus next in the queue.

Augustus has the option to either attempt to negotiate with the party ahead of it, or perhaps lodge an objection based on it having the superior knowledge and financial firepower to make really big things happen at Mt Kare.

Geologically, Mt Kare is an Alkalic Epithermal deposit. Similar to the Vanapa River mineralisation, alkalic type deposits are a subset of low-sulphidation epithermal deposits and form some of the largest deposits globally.

Drilling at Mt Kare has thrown up several astonishing drill hits such as a 111m stretch at 9.8g/t gold from just 4m and 17.7m going 100 g/t gold from 59m. A further result delivered a stunning 20m at 443g/t gold.

PNG has always been elephant country when it comes to mineral deposits but has in the past been difficult to deal with from a regulatory perspective albeit it is now showing signs that it is open for business.

And one thing seems certain, Augustus executives are spending a lot of time in PNG, navigating their way through that regulatory framework and when PNG does in fact open for business, Augustus will be standing at the counter – and very close to the front of the line.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au