Vancouver — With the price of gold continuing to climb, more and more junior explorers are venturing back to the once heavily favoured Asian region. A case in point is Celtic Minerals (CME-V), which inked a deal over the Malaumanda gold project in Papua New Guinea.
Under the agreement, Celtic can earn an 85% stake in the 850-sq-km property by spending $3 million and making staged cash payments totaling $40,000.
Located 150-km northwest of Mount Hagen in East Sepik province, the property lies 60-km northeast of the Porgera gold mine. A total of 4 grab rock samples over a 50 metre area of the Milikap showing recently returned several bonanza grade values including: 625 grams gold and 340 grams silver, 410 grams gold and 125 grams silver. One sample collected at Lodon village some 6.8 km away returned 0.84 gram gold and 1.5 gram silver.
Previous exploration from 1986-1990 identified numerous target areas with Milikap showing the most promise. Shallow hand dug pits, dug into thick clay soil and very weathered saprolite returned values of up to 279 grams gold. Between 1998 and 1999, Sepik Gold completed more trenches on the Milikap prospect yielding values of 20m at 3.92 grams gold, 6m grading 25.9 grams gold, and 46 metres averaging 5.8 grams gold. A 600 metre drill program followed returning up to 20.8 metres grading 5.7 grams gold.
Access to the area is by light aircraft with the nearest road lying 40 km to the south. Mineralization at Malaumanda appears to be concentrated along north-northeast striking transfer structures. Samples collected ACA Howe International at Milikap returned up to 194 grams gold. The consulting company listed five additional target areas that are considered prospective.
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