Newcrest eyes new PNG licence

FRONTIER Resources has said that Newcrest Mining is interested in including the newly awarded Mt Schrader licence in Papua New Guinea to the proposed Mt Andewa farm-in.
Mt Schrader (EL 1951) encompasses Frontier’s highly prospective Mt Andewa exploration project in West New Britain province and enhances its exploration portfolio for precious and base metals in the district.
Under the Mt Andewa farm-in, Newcrest will take a 60% interest in Mt Andewa by spending A$15.25 million over four years from the beginning of this year and has the option to earn a 60% stake in the adjacent Mt Schrader exploration area by spending a further A$4 million.
The gold major also has the option to increase its stake in the project by an additional 12% by paying Frontier a payment of 12% of the ore reserve gold ounces (at US$46 per ounce) specified in any subsequent feasibility study to develop Mt Andewa and/or Schrader.
The farm-in by Newcrest is conditional upon completion of a satisfactory due diligence by Newcrest, obtaining all necessary government and regulatory approvals and obtaining the parties’ respective internal approval.
Mt Schrader has several quasi-circular topographic features that have been partially explored with alteration zones identified and gold mineralisation seen in two-stream sediment anomalies to 0.175 gram per tonne gold, plus copper, arsenic and mercury in hydrothermal breccia rock samples.
These are all favourable indicators for possible gold mineralisation in this type of ‘high level’ geological environment.
Mt Schrader also covers two major west-northwest trending structural zones as well as a North-South zone) that could host gold and/or copper mineralisation.
Exploration is likely to consist of an aeromagnetics and radiometrics geophysical survey, evaluation of satellite data, and SRTM digital imagery to locate clay alteration zones and topographic anomalies.
Detailed field evaluation will comprise reconnaissance exploration in the structural zones using panned concentrate stream sediment sampling, rock chip/float sampling, soil sampling, geological