Newcrest to start pre-strip mining at Toguraci gold project

Following is an excerpt from Newcrest Mining Limited?s Quarterly Report ended 30 September 2003, released on October 13, 2003.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT
Preparation for the development of Toguraci continued with further site preparation and road access activities. Equipment for the mining phase has begun to arrive on site.

Pre-strip will commence in October 2003 with ore production commencing in December 2003.

EXPLORATION
The tempo of drilling increased, with results reported this quarter for 15 holes at Kencana and 19 holes from the Kayu Manis and BOD prospects at Toguraci.

At Kencana, resource definition drilling on a nominal 25x25m pattern continued between sections 19850N and 20000N, to facilitate a resource estimate in early 2004. This drilling is expected to be completed in the December quarter.

More widely-spaced drilling (nominally 50m hole separation) to the south of the resource definition area has progressed to section 19700N, where holes DSD45 and 55 both intersected gold mineralisation.

New results from Kencana are as follows:

Holes DSD34, 38 and 39 reported last quarter failed to record any significant mineralisation.

The accompanying cross section (19900N) in Figure 1 shows the continuity of high gold grades through the currently identified bonanza grade part of the deposit. Figure 2 is the long section showing new drill results.

At Toguraci, the search continued for additional mineralisation to supplement that identified in the Midas and Damar deposits.

Drilling on the Kayu Manis structure is producing encouraging results with high grade gold mineralisation recorded from near-surface to a depth of almost 150m over a distance of more than 100m, to within 100m of the southern margin of the proposed Midas-Damar pit. The mineralisation remains open in this direction.

Significant new results from Kayu Manis are indicated in Table 1.

Immediately to the west of the southern boundary of the proposed Midas-Damar pit at Toguraci, drilling of the BOD mineralisation has continued to intersect apparently erratically-distributed high grade gold mineralisation.

Significant results from the recent BOD drilling are indicated in Table 2.

EXPENDITURE
Toguraci: A$2.0 million.

Editor?s note: ASX-listed Newcrest holds 82.5 percent equity in PT Nusa Halmahera Mineral, which runs the gold mine, while state miner PT Aneka Tambang Tbk, holds the remaining 17.5 percent. (*)