Returning to a US$20M+, drill-tested, district-scale system in the same gold-copper belt as the >30Moz Au Porgera gold mine, 40km away. High-grade historical results include 7.8 m @ 12.98% Cu and 11.75 g/t Au, surface rock chips to 38.7% Cu and 40 g/t Au, and 152 m @ 1.17% Cu and 0.93 g/t Au, across four largely untested prospect areas.
South Pacific Metals Corp. (TSXV: SPMC) (OTCQB: SPMEF) (FSE: 6J00) (“SPMC” or the “Company“) is pleased to announce the commencement of exploration at its 100%-owned Kili Teke Copper-Gold Project (“Kili Teke” or the “Project“) in the Hela Province of Papua New Guinea (“PNG“). Following community awareness meetings concluded in Tari in late April and early May 2026, the Company has secured the support of landowners, the Hela Provincial Government, the Koroba-Kopiago District and the Awi-Logayu Local Level Government to return to the ground at Exploration Licence 2310, held through SPMC’s wholly-owned PNG operating subsidiary, Kainantu Resources Limited (“KRL“).
Highlights
- Established resource base: an NI 43-101 Inferred Mineral Resource (effective 18 November 2022) of 237 Mt grading 0.24 g/t Au and 0.34% Cu, containing 1.81 Moz Au, 802 kt Cu and 40 kt Mo for 4.2Moz AuEq1 – defined on only the Central Main Porphyry (CMP) alone, a fraction of the intrusive complex. (see news release dated January 12, 2023)
- Four prospect areas, one drilled. The resource sits within just one of the four prospect areas. The remaining three: the Ieru Porphyry, the Ridge Gold Area and the Skarn Corridor, together with the deeper, higher-grade parts of the resource system, remain largely untested.
- Additional exploration targets. Beyond the resource, SPMC has defined over ten exploration targets across three distinct mineralised styles: (see news release dated October 1, 2024)
- A Porgera-style alkalic epithermal gold target: the Ridge Gold Area (RGA) with an Au-Te-As signature distinct from the resource porphyry’s Cu-Au-Mo. Soils up to 9.39 g/t Au; rock chips to 9 g/t Au, 7.4 g/t Ag and 1.5% Cu.
- A separately modelled intrusive complex, the Cu-Au Ieru Porphyry (IP). Surface rock chips up to 38.7% Cu and 40 g/t Au; historic trenching of 27 m @ 0.97% Cu and 1.25 g/t Au.
- A corridor of high-grade Cu-Au-Ag-Zn skarn targets, each largely untested. Historical drilling returned 7.8 m @ 12.98% Cu and 11.75 g/t Au, outside the current resource.
- 14 ranked drill targets: a machine-learning targeting study with ALS GeoAnalytics ranked 14 drill targets, classifying six of them Rank 1, including a high-priority deep porphyry target beneath the CMP and a series of targets on the resource margins, where the system remains open.
- Exploration underway with full stakeholder support: The Project has been formally endorsed by the Office of the Honourable Philip Undialu, Governor of Hela Province, the Hela Provincial Administration, the Koroba-Kopiago District and the Local-Level Government, with provincial and district leaders confirming the local Kili Teke community is eager for work to begin. KRL is now mobilising to site to begin a staged work programme at one of PNG’s most advanced undeveloped copper-gold systems.
- Detailed interactive 3D model: A VRIFY technical presentation on the Kili Teke staged exploration programme is available on the Company’s website and at https://vrify.com/decks/21678.
Executive Chairman Michael Murphy commented: “Kili Teke is rare for an explorer of our size. A district-scale system with a 4.2-million-ounce resource and more than US$20 million of past work behind it, yet with three of its four prospect areas barely drilled. The high-grade results are already on the board, from high-grade skarn intercepts to multi-gram gold in soils. Our job is to follow the data, stage by stage, back to the productive heart of this system, and we are doing so with the full support of the landowners and the Hela Provincial Government, to whom we are deeply grateful.“
A Data-Rich Foundation with More Than a Decade of Work
Kili Teke has been the subject of systematic exploration for more than a decade, principally by Harmony Gold between 2014 and 2017, with in excess of US$20 million of expenditure. Work to date includes 55 diamond drill holes for 36,917 metres (averaging 660 m, with 12 holes deeper than 900 m and a maximum of 1,533 m), 1,674 surface geochemistry samples, airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys, induced-polarisation geophysics and 3D magnetic vector inversion modelling, and detailed mapping across the 253 km² tenement. This work culminated in an independent NI 43-101 Inferred Mineral Resource (effective 18 November 2022). SPMC has since added a machine-learning re-interpretation of the historical drill database (ALS GeoAnalytics LithoLens™) and the University of British Columbia MDRU porphyry-proximity (MPIx) index, together generating the 14 target ranked inventory now being advanced.
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