Arc takes no legal action on Bima IUP revocation
Wednesday, April 25 2012 - 12:40 PM WIB
Australian listed gold miner Arc Exploration Limited has recently stated that although it has at all time operated in full compliance with all legal and regulatory license requirements, the company has decided not to commence court proceedings against the revocation of Exploration IUP owned by Arc?s partner PT Sumber Mineral Nusantara as of January 28, 2011 by the regent of Bima following the anti mining demonstration in the area this January.
The revocation, the regent said, was due to security reasons.
?It was due to matters of cost, time to any resolution and the inevitable loss of management focus better utilized on Arc?s other assets and plans,? the company stated on its quarterly report ended April 24, 2012. Arc?s other projects in Indonesia are located in Papua and East Java.
Arc?s focus on its other projects includes its joint venture project with PT Sumber Mineral Nusantara, which holds the Trenggalek Exploration IUP license covering a 30,044 ha area in Trenggalek, the Southern Mountains of East Java.
Arc stated that soil sampling and initial trenching at the Bogoran Prospect produced coincident gold-molybdenum anomalies over extensively stockworked volcanic rocks.
Trench intercepts include CTS098: 7 m at 2.7 g/t Au & 74 ppm Mo, CTS100: 120 m at 0.22 g/t Au & 47 ppm Mo; including 4 m at 2.36 g/t Au & 860 ppm Mo and 3 m at 2.83 g/t Au & 868 ppm Mo. ?The elevated molybdenum results are significant and are comparable to those above the buried porphyry copper-gold deposit at Intrepid?s Tujuh Bukit Project,? the company added.
The renewal of the forestry use permit (?Pinjam Pakai?) from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry is still awaited, while field work was continued on two new prospects identified in the previous quarter. Arc stated that exploration expenditure at Trenggalek during the quarter totaled at A$171,655.
The company also stated that soil sampling has been commenced on Sumber Bening Prospect, representing a possible high-sulphidation epithermal target. The early results from Bogoran and Sumber Bening, said the company, are particularly encouraging as they support the possibility of buried mineralized porphyry systems occurring on the Trenggalek IUP.
Soil sampling and detailed geological mapping had also been commenced late in the quarter of the year to define the size and geochemical character of the mineralised alteration system found at the surfaces of its Sumber Bening site, which lies on prominent north-northwest-trending structures that cut across a 4km diameter-circular feature on the western side of the IUP.
The Sumber Bening site, said the company, covers an extensive area (+2-km by 1-km) of silica-clay-pyrite alteration with localised pods of vughy silica alteration centred on volcaniclastic rocks and quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusions. Initial rock grab samples assaying up to 0.14 ppm gold, 37 ppm molybdenum, 277 ppm copper and 1410 ppm bismuth were reported last quarter. These results and the characteristics of the altered rocks are interpreted to indicate a possible high-sulphidation epithermal system with potential for porphyry mineralisation at depth.
In Papua, in association with Anglo American Group, Arc holds a 20 percent interest to explore for copper-gold deposits in three Exploration IUP tenements covering nearly 3,000 km2 at the centre of the Bird?s Head peninsula in West Papua Province.
These lie over highly prospective ground in the region which also hosts Grasberg - Indonesia?s largest porphyry copper-gold deposit. Anglo is responsible for managing and funding all exploration activities for the Alliance, stating that they are advancing preparations to do an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over the three IUP?s later in the year, pending the availability of a geophysical contractor and helicopter support.
Editing by Er Audy Zandri