Great Pacific Gold, a small-cap Canadian-based exploration company backed by some very well-known industry names, continues to roll up copper and gold assets in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The latest news from the company, led by CEO Bryan Slusarchuk, who is no stranger to PNG, is that they have been granted the highly coveted exploration license known as EL 2516.
Slusarchuk notes, “EL 2516 has been sought after for good reason. Obviously, there is a lot of evidence from the property suggesting very high gold grades exists, including past drill results and former production but what we like about the property is the potential for serious size, scope and scale. It is a rare project out there in that it has huge blue sky in terms of both grade and size.”
The grant of EL 2516 to Great Pacific Gold is good news for multiple stakeholders, not only shareholders in the company whose shares trade in Canada under the symbol GPAC but also in the United States as FSXLF.
Slusarchuk states, “As we prepare for our program at this project, there is road work rehabilitation that needs done that will be a big benefit for the local community. There will also be a lot of employment opportunities in the local areas and a situation down the road through which there is the potential for a participating equity interest at the local level. We know there is a lot of excitement about this project in the region.”
The huge land package at the project now totals 1424 sq. km advanced stage project. It is an area where multiple high-grade drill hole intercepts near the surface have been historically reported, while the project remains underexplored at depth and along strike, with multiple structures within a 15km x 4km corridor largely untested by drilling, including several epithermal targets and at least three copper-gold porphyry targets.
In addition to the size potential, there have been some eye-popping high grades recently reported, including from samples collected at a historic stockpile near the Wild Dog Zone which include Sample 30104 which assayed 242 g/t Au, 601 g/t Ag, 9.52% Cu and Sample 68001 which assayed 122.5 g/t Au, 350 g/t Ag and 11% Cu.
More than one thousand holes have been drilled on the property, most of which were focussed near the surface in support of past mining activities such as grade control drilling covering the historic mined oxide epithermal deposit.
Slusarchuk has had a lot of success in PNG in the past, most notably as co-founder and former President of K92 Mining Inc., a producer in the country with more than 1600 employees and contractors that has produced huge returns for early investors and for various stakeholders. Great Pacific Gold is a chance to perhaps repeat this success, although, as with all exploration and mining situations, there are risks.
Slusarchuk notes, “PNG is becoming very prominent in the exploration community right now. K92 Mining has shown a company can go from discovery through to very successful production in the jurisdiction. The world’s largest gold company, Newmont, just entered PNG, raising its profile further, and we all know that PNG is known as the Land of Giants in the space for good reason. There just aren’t that many places on the planet you can find copper and gold like you can in PNG. And while PNG has great geology, the greatest asset of the country is the people. There are a lot of very skilled and hard-working PNG geologists, engineers, and miners, and it’s a great place to be involved in exploration.”
