TPJ: No further spending

TRIPLE Plate Junction (TPJ) has received the full results from the latest drilling at the Crater Mountain gold project in Papua New Guinea, but it stands by its decision not to fund more exploration there.
While the data received from partner Gold Anomaly was encouraging in terms of potential for the discovery of a large low-grade gold deposit, the results did not change Triple Plate’s view that they are not sufficient to justify contributing the amounts of money needed to fund the future drilling programme, TPJ said in a statement on the weekend.
The statement came a day after TPJ announced it would reduce its stake in Crater Mountain from 20% to a 10% free carried interest, held together with Celtic Minerals.
The reduced stake would be carried through to the completion of a bankable feasibility study.
Triple Plate will hold 8 percentage points and Celtic Minerals 2 percentage points of the carried interest. 
The new drilling programme is budgeted to amount to a total in excess of A$3.6 million to end June 2012 alone.
Triple Plate chief executive Fraser McGee said yesterday: “While we believe that the Crater Mountain project has potential to deliver real value for the company, the results so far have shown that moving to a free-carried undilutable 8 per cent interest will enable us to retain value without significant capital expenditure.”