SPECIAL REPORT: Gold Mountain, the Australian explorer plying highly prospective ground once held by BHP in Papua New Guinea, is seeing increasing evidence that suggests it is on the brink of discovering a very large copper-gold system.

The company released an exploration update on the Monoyal prospect, part of its flagship Wabag Project in PNG, on Tuesday, detailing what it had observed in core taken from two recent diamond drill holes, MCD005 and MCD006.

And its assessment was that the core provided the strongest indicators yet of major porphyry-style mineralisation, the style it has been targeting and which hosts many of PNG’s biggest copper and gold deposits.

Specifically, hole MCD006 presented a higher level of fracturing and veining than observed in previous holes, while hole MCD006 showed the highest level of brecciation and alteration encountered in the drilling program to date.

Assays from those diamond holes, the third and fourth drilled as part of a nine-hole program testing a large copper-in-soil anomaly at Monoyal, are expected to be reported in May.

“The sense of anticipation for the assay results from holes MCD005 and MCD006 inside the company is palpable and we look forward to reporting them next month,” chief executive Tim Cameron said.

“I was particularly happy to see the amount of alteration and veining in MCD006, which was being logged when I was on site recently.”

An initial review of the fifth and most recently drilled hole, MCD007, will be conducted shortly and the observations subsequently reported.

 

Sought-after address

Monoyal is one of several prospects Gold Mountain has identified within the Wabag tenements, which cover 2,500km2 along the Papuan Mobile Belt, host to some of the world’s biggest gold and copper-gold deposits.

Many of the tenements are exploration licences or exploration licence applications (ELAs) that BHP surrendered in the early 2000’s.

They were vended into ASX-listed entity Commissioner’s Gold in June 2014, which soon changed its name to Gold Mountain.

The company is continuing with core logging, sampling and trenching work at Monoyal as it seeks to optimise the location of future drill holes.

Assays from the first five holes and the input of a porphyry expert engaged to review collated data will also assist in this process.

The first diamond drill hole sunk at Monoyal, MCD003, returned anomalous copper mineralisation averaging 850 parts per million over a very large interval of about 500 metres from surface.

This included a best intercept of 101m at 0.14% copper and 76ppm molybdenum from a depth of 398 metres.

The second hole, MCD004, produced a similar result, with a best intercept of 124m at 0.12% copper, 105ppm molybdenum and 0.06 g/t gold from 125 metres.

 

 

This story was developed in collaboration with Gold Mountain, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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