K92 Mining (KNT.V) has started the drilling and blasting activities and is now officially constructing the underground drive from Irumafimpa to the high-grade Kora deposit, another part of the Kainantu gold mine in Papua New Guinea.
The drive will be production-size (5 by 5 meters), and should allow K92 Mining to start extracting ore from the Kora deposit in the first half of next year. That’s great, but the drive will also have an additional positive feature, as it will now allow the company to start an underground exploration and drill program to figure out if there’s something of interest in between the Kora and Irumafimpa zones.
As you can see on the previous image, there’s a huge gap between these zones. This doesn’t mean the rock is ‘barren’, as this zone simply hasn’t seen any modern exploration activities due to the topographical challenges associated with a surface drill program.
Any additional high-grade ore to feed the mill would be absolutely welcome, even though the Kora deposit by itself could (and will) keep K92 Mining busy for quite a while. As a brief reminder, Kora contains almost 4.5 million tonnes at an average grade of 7.3 g/t gold, in excess of 2.2% copper and just over one ounce of silver per tonne of rock. As we explxained in a previous report, the excellent copper grade should compensate for a slightly lower gold price now, and the mix of copper and gold gives K92 exposure to the most important precious metal as well as the most important base metal on te world market.
We would expect the company to release an update on its mining and milling activities shortly, and we will provide an in-depth review once additional data has been released.
Go to K92’s website
The author has a long position in K92 Mining. K92 is a sponsor of the website. Please read the disclaimer
