The Mineral Resources Authority of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has given approval for Crater Gold Mining to recommence operations on its flagship Crater Mountain project.

View of the Crater Mountain Operation

Following many months of work by the new in-country management team, headed up by Country Manager Curtis Church, a new mine plan has been approved by the Chief Inspector of Mines.

Two inspections of the site, the associated facilities and mining equipment have been carried out by the Mines Safety Branch inspection team. A schedule of on-going improvements has been agreed with the Inspectorate and operations have resumed conditional upon the Company meeting a number of requirements. The Company has agreed with all the requirements and is confident of meeting them in the required timeframes.

Crater Gold Managing Director Russ Parker said, “We have been working hard to overcome obstacles of the past and we now look forward to driving this project along the right road and generating income from mining operations as soon as possible.

Work has already resumed on the development of the 1930 level adit and mining has kicked off in the 1960 level. In addition, a drilling programme will be implemented forthwith.”

The project is located approximately 50km southwest of Goroka, the regional centre for the Eastern Highlands Province, PNG. It comprises three contiguous exploration licences, straddling the border between the Chimbu and Eastern Highland Provinces.

This region is in the centre of the New Guinea Orogen, an extensive geological zone that makes up the mountainous spine of Papua New Guinea. The western portion of this zone encompasses the world class mining operations of Porgera, OK Tedi, Wafi-Golpu and Grasberg.

A JORC compliant inferred resource of 24Mt at 1.0 g/t Au using a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off for 790,000 ounces has been defined in the Main Zone; this includes 9.4Mt at 1.46 g/t using a 1.0 g/t Au cut-off for 440,000 ozs.