Hillgrove has secured 1,991.3 square kilometres of ground comprising two major projects - the Bird's Head copper/gold project and a gold prospect in Sumba.
We are mindful that we are operating in and around local landowners and communities and it is our greatest wish to see all benefit from our presence.
Hillgrove has secured 1,991.3 square kilometres of ground comprising two major projects - the Bird's Head Project on the north western tip of the eastern Indonesian province of West Papua and a gold prospect on the island of Sumba, west of Timor.
The Bird's Head Project represents an excellent opportunity to explore for large scale epithermal and porphyry style mineralisation within a geological setting that has been proven to host world class deposits. The Project covers a large area of what is interpreted to be the westward continuation of the New Guinea 'Orogenic Belt' which contains the giant Ertsberg/Grasberg, Porgera and Ok Tedi deposits. The Bird's Head Project has key ingredients to potentially host a deposit of significant size with two advanced prospects, Delta and Alpha, which could be drill ready in six months.
P.T. Akram Resources was awarded an exploration license or Kuasa Penambangan (KP) over 1,815 square kilometres of the Bird's Head Peninsula (Kepala Burung) in West Papua, Indonesia on the 4 December 2008. Hillgrove has undertaken to conduct exploration work, feasibility studies if justified, and steps to advance the KP to exploration status in return for an indirect 80% interest.
In late March 2010 Hillgrove was pleased to announce that an Exploration Mining Business Licence (IUP Eksplorasi) Number 40 2010 had been granted by the Governor of West Papua. The IUP (in Indonesian, an Izin Usaha Pertambangan or ‘IUP’) Eksplorasi is a follow on title from the original Kuasa Penambangan (KP) No 254 2008 and has a term of seven years. The IUP Eksplorasi covers an area of 99,230 hectares or 992.3km² which is close to the maximum area allowable for an IUP Eksplorasi under the new Indonesian mining laws promulgated in January 2009.
The Bird's Head Project is located in north-western West Papua in the Indonesian province of Papua Barat. The regional centre of Sorong, located approximately 130 kilometres to the southwest, is supported by regular commercial air and sea services. The IUP license area is sparsely populated and covers areas ranging from the coast through to moderate elevations of around 2,500 metres within 40 kilometres of the coast.
The IUP covers a number of mineralised areas explored between 1986 and early 1993 and shown to contain extensive porphyry style copper-gold and epithermal gold mineralisation, with five major zones identified. Three stream drainages showing detrital gold were named Alpha, Bravo and Golf and prioritised as epithermal style gold targets and an additional two, Foxtrot and Delta, as porphyry style copper-gold targets.
The extensive gold and base metal mineralisation already identified plus the excellent geology, matched with a large exploration data base, means Hillgrove is in the hunt for a potential major discovery. The attractiveness of the Project is highlighted by the fact that on the same basis as Hillgrove, two international majors were concurrently awarded KP's in the same area.
Extensive work has been undertaken on compiling previous exploration reports and historic data, and establishing support for ground activities.Logistical and geological services have been established in Jakarta and in the regional city of Sorong to act as an administrative and logistics hub for exploration, which includes geologists and staff highly experienced in working in West Papua. Hillgrove, through its partner PT Akram Resources, has completed the socialisation phase of activities in the area and has completed the construction of a base camp at the coastal village of Warmandi, close to the Delta Prospect, to undertake field exploration.
Exploration was initially focused on the Kali Sute portion of Delta which is located within 1km of the coast but has now been expanded to cover the potential porphyry copper system at West Delta. The focus of future work will be to continue with mapping and channel sampling activities in the West Delta area with the aid of recently remodelled historical air magnetic data. The historical air magnetic data was used to create a 3D inversion model and from this it appears that a significant deep seated magnetic anomaly occurs adjacent to the copper anomalism at the surface. While this may be a coincidence, one theory is that the hollow core to the magnetic anomaly represents a hydrothermal channel that has been demagnetised by alteration and that mineralisation has dispersed along various structures close to surface. Further work is now required to investigate the overlying geology of the magnetic anomaly.
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