Oropa reports Indonesian H1 activities
Saturday, July 31 2004 - 01:19 AM WIB
Pungkut Gold Project, North Sumatra (75%)
On 20 April 2004, Oropa announced it had exercised an option to purchase 100% of the issued shares in Aberfoyle Pungkut Investments Pty Ltd (?API?) from the vendors, Pacmin Mining Corporation Limited and Western Metals Copper Limited, to acquire API?s 75% beneficial interest in the Pungkut gold project. API holds a 75% interest in the Pungkut Contract of Work (?CoW?) with the Indonesian Government mining company, P.T. Aneka Tambang holding the remaining 25%.
As consideration, Oropa has agreed to issue the vendors with 27,777,778 ordinary fully paid shares in the Company at a deemed issue price of 3.6 cents per share, calculated from the weighted average of trading on ASX for five consecutive days prior to exercising the option. Settlement is scheduled to be completed in early August.
Exploration conducted during the quarter targeted the mineral potential of the Sihayo 2 prospect, centred approximately 1km to the northwest of the Sihayo 1 North prospect (7.1 Mt @ 2.7g/t Au with 1.0g/t lower cut off). Sihayo 2 is an area of extensive jasperoid outcrop where rock chip and trench samples returned values of up to 5.45 g/t Au and the soil contained anomalous gold averaging 0.33 g/t.
A total of eight (8) diamond holes for 811m of drilling were completed. This drilling intersected mineralisation contained within broken strongly silicified limestone (jasperoid) and silicified volcaniclastic breccia and silicified siltstone analogous to the Sihayo 1 North prospect.
Most holes encountered low level mineralisation with the most significant results returned including; SH2D001 14.7m @ 0.68 g/t Au from 21.3 metres and SH2D002 14.4m @ 1.25 g/t Au from 68.8 metres incl. 5.30m @ 2.15 g/t Au from 68.8 metres.
This drilling concluded the planned drilling programs at Sihayo 1 North and Sihayo 2.
A detailed interpretation of all drilling results and geological reassessment of the entire gold-prospective Sihayo 2 to Sambung corridor (>3km) is presently being undertaken.
A remote image interpretation and structural geology study of the entire 66,200ha Pungkut CoW area and a more detailed study of the Sihayo corridor are underway. This interpretation is based on air-photo and satellite imagery with fieldwork to reinforce the interpretation in several areas. The results will be used to provide focus on the additional exploration of known prospects and to better outline other areas with potential. The results of this detailed structural evaluation, which commenced in May, are expected in early August.
While this structural interpretation was being undertaken, exploration commenced at the Tarutung epithermal gold prospect in the southern block of the CoW, one of many prospects in the southern block that yielded highly anomalous results during initial evaluation by Aberfoyle Resources Ltd. These activities included geological mapping and grid preparation. Previous exploration at Tarutung demonstrated the presence of high gold values in quartz vein sub-crop, with the average of 18 channel samples 18g/t Au (maximum 167g/t Au) & 111g/t Ag (maximum 635g/t Ag).
Additional zones of quartz veining were identified during the June quarter,extending the strike length of the zone of mineralisation from 350m to approximately 1.3km from limited grab sampling, which returned values up to 5.6g/t Au. Ground magnetic and IP surveying is planned to assist with drill target delineation, with the ground magnetic survey having recently commenced.
On 11 March 2004, the Indonesian Government issued Regulation in Lieu of Law Number 1 of 2004 that stipulates that all mining sector licences issued before Forest Law Number 44 of 1999 will be exempt from the restrictions imposed by that law. PT Sorikmas Mining, holder of the Pungkut CoW is one of 13 mining and exploration companies that has been specifically authorised to continue its field activities in forestry areas by a follow up Presidential Decree dated 12 May 2004.
This Government Regulation was ratified into law by the Indonesian parliament on 15 July 2004. There has been some controversy between the Central Government and Provincial Governments regarding mining operations within forested areas, but this new law now permits ongoing mining within areas designated protected forests. Most of the areas of interest within the Pungkut CoW are located outside areas designated protected forests, although Sihayo 3, 4 and 5 prospects which have yielded highly anomalous gold values from preliminary exploration are located inside a protected forest. This new law permits PT Sorikmas to continue with its appraisal of these three prospects, situated some 2km west of the main Sihayo trend.(*)