Coppermoly to form JV with Barrick

AUSTRALIAN company Coppermoly will form a joint venture with Barrick Gold Corp for its three tenements in New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea.
Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Barrick Gold, the world’s largest pure gold mining company, had earned a 72% stake in the Simuku, Nakru and Talelumas tenements after meeting the A$20 million expenditure commitment required under the farm-in agreement with Coppermoly.
Coppermoly managing director Peter Swiridiuk told the Proactive Investors website yesterday the joint venture would now be finalised.
“We will formalise a joint venture agreement over the next three months with Barrick, to look at ways of progressing these projects.
Importantly, Coppermoly will retain a 28% interest in the tenements, which Swiridiuk said was a great advantage for shareholders.
Coppermoly’s cash contribution up to the completion of a feasibility study will be delayed until the commencement of production, and will be repaid from the company’s share of any future production revenue.
“From Coppermoly’s perspective we can now continue to watch the projects being advanced without needing to contribute any cash until the completion of a feasibility study,” Swiridiuk said.
The Simuku project, which included the Simuku and Talelumas exploration licences, hosted an inferred JORC Resource of 200 million tonnes grading 0.47% copper equivalent, with a cut-off grade of 0.3% copper equivalent.
Simuku is an hour’s drive from the provincial capital of Kimbe on New Britain Island.
Meanwhile, at the Nakru project, an exploration target of 50 to 60 million tonnes grading 0.7% to 0.9% copper had been set for the Nakru-1 copper-gold system.
This system is the most advanced prospect within the tenement.
The Nakru project is located within a four hour drive from Kimbe.
In addition to the joint venture tenements, Coppermoly has applied for a further three tenements in the region, which Swiridiuk said are significantly larger than the existing tenements.
“We’ve got three other applications that are 10 times larger than those under the agreement with Barrick … we are going through the process of getting them granted.”