VANCOUVER, BC, Aug. 16, 2021
/CNW/ - Freeport Resources Inc. (the "Company") is pleased
to announce that it has acquired all of the outstanding share
capital of Carpo Resources Inc. ("Carpo"). Carpo is a
privately-held company which controls Era Resources Inc., a
corporation established under the laws of Cayman Islands and which itself controls an
exploration license located in Papua New
Guinea and which is commonly known as the "Yandera Copper
Project".
Carpo was acquired pursuant to a share purchase agreement, dated
effective June 25th, 2021, entered
into with Carpo, and all of the shareholders of Carpo
(collectively, the "Vendors"). The Company is at arms-length
from each of Carpo, and the Vendors. In consideration for all
of the outstanding share capital of Carpo, the Company has issued
20,000,000 common shares to the Vendors. In connection with
completion of the Transaction, the Company does not expect to
assume any material liabilities, nor does it expect to devote the
majority of its working capital or resources to the development of
Carpo or the Yandera Copper Project. As a result, the
Transaction does not constitute a fundamental acquistion for the
Company, within the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange. The
Transaction did not result in the creation of a new insider, or a
change of control, of the Company, within the meaning of applicable
securities laws.
The acquisition of the Yandera Copper Project, which is one of
the largest undeveloped copper deposits in the world, is in line
with the Company's mandate to seek out, identify and acquire
undervalued projects globally. The Company previously
acquired the Star Mountains Copper & Gold Project, also in
Papua New Guinea.
The Yandera Copper Project
The Yandera Project area was the subject of intensive,
drill-based exploration programs during the late 1960s and 1970s by
a number of companies. The historic activity, which included 102
diamond drill holes totaling over 33,000 metres, culminated in the
preparation of a mining study by BHP, identifying the Yandera
porphyry system as containing one of the largest undeveloped
porphyry copper systems (with ancillary molybdenum and gold) in the
world.
Subsequent to that, Era Resources Inc. spent over USD
$100 million and drilled another 471
holes totaling over 144,000 metres. There remains opportunity for
further exploration to increase the resource.
A Pre-Feasibility Study, completed by Worley Parsons in 2017 showed total resources of
959 million tonnes of copper equivalent grading 0.37%
including measured & indicated resources of 728 million
tonnes grading 0.39% copper equivalent, and 541 million tonnes of
Probable Reserves averaging 0.39% copper equivalent. The
measured and indicated resources equate to 6.2 billion pounds of
copper equivalent and total resources equate to almost 8 billion
pounds of copper equivalent.
Location, Physiograpy and Accessibility
The Yandera project is located approximately 95km southwest of
the city of Madang in the foothills of the Bismarck Mountain Range,
which is part of the central cordillera of New Guinea, at an elevation of approximately
1,900m above sea level. The site is
situated on the northern side of the range, about 13km
east-northeast from Mt. Wilhelm, with the extensive floodplain of
the Ramu River approximately 20km to the east.
The deposit area is mountainous with the Imbrum River valley to
the west and the Tai-Yor River valley to the east. Materials
and transport for the site team are via helicopter from Madang
Airport or from a lay down yard which runs through the village of
Usino, a 10-12 minute flight away.
History
In 1965, Kennecott acquired the Exploration License (EL) to work
on the Project. They continued ownership and operated until 1973,
when Triako Mines acquired the Project and had its operator, Amdex,
complete the work programs.
Amdex jointly worked with Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP)
on the property from 1974 to 1977. In 1978 Amdex joint-ventured
with Buka Minerals. Work and ownership between Amdex and Buka
Minerals continued until 1984, when they dropped the Project. The
Project sat idle until 1999, when Highland Pacific and Cyprus Amax
acquired an EL and worked on the Project before dropping it prior
to 2000.
The Project then sat idle again until Belvedere Limited acquired
the EL for the property. In 2005, Belvedere formed a joint-venture
with Marengo Mining Limited, who operated the property.
In 2006, Marengo Mining acquired the Project through the
purchase of Belvedere's interest.
Since then Marengo Mining, now Era Resources Inc., has been the
sole owner and operator of the Project. Era was subsequently
acquired by Carpo which is now owned by the Company.
Geology
Yandera is an igneous, intrusive-hosted, structurally controlled
copper porphyry system with ancillary molybdenum and gold composed
of a series of adjacent, vertically oriented deposits along
recognized structural trends. Mineralization is concentrated in
several deposits, namely, Imbruminda, Gremi, Omora, Gamagu and
Dimbi. Imbruminda, Gremi, and Omora are contiguous and separated
from Dimbi by a low-grade, central, silica-rich zone, which is
bounded on three sides by high angle faults. The bulk of the
mineralization is adjacent to these major structures on a
northwest-southeast trend. Locally, north-northeast-trending cross
faults bound mineral domains and reflect the structural complexity
of the district.
The property lies within the New Guinea Orogenic Belt, which
stretches from the southeastern portion of the island through the
central mountain ranges into Indonesia, and to the west of Grasberg,
Freeport McMoran's giant Copper-Gold mine. The belt is home
to some of the world's largest producing mines and deposits,
including the aforementioned Grasberg, which hosts the largest
reserve of gold and second largest reserve of copper in the
world.
This belt includes slices of metamorphic basement and contains a
variety of sedimentary packages. Above Paleozoic and early Mesozoic
schists, marbles and granodiorite lie packages of Triassic to
Jurassic volcanic, and clastic sediments, and Jurassic to
Cretaceous clastic, volcanic, and volcanogenic sediments.
Papua New Guinea &
Mining
Since the early 1970s, the mining industry has dominated the
economy of Papua New Guinea (PNG)
accounting for the vast mority of it's export revenues. It is
also one of the largest employers and builders of
infrastructure in the country. Mining in PNG requires
balancing the interests of mining companies with the local and
national governments, the local communities and landowners all the
while observing the environmental responsibility and sustainability
issues.
Despite these challenges, there are comparatively few areas left
in the world that offer the potential for the development of
large-scale mining projects within a district as prospective as the
New Guinea Orogenic Belt. Home to the giant existing mines
Grasberg, Ok Tedi, Porgera and Lihir, PNG also has district-scale
projects in the pipeline such as Wafi-Golpu and Frieda River.
Copper
As the world transitions to a net-zero future, this shift
towards electrification and sustainable energy is creating a surge
in the demand for copper since copper is a key component in wind,
solar and battery technologies due to it's ductility and
conductivity. At the same time, the supply for copper has
remained stagnant and these conditions are expected to persist
throughout the decade. With the addition of Yandera to the
Company's portfolio, the Company has the ability to capitalize on
this potential market imbalance in the coming years.
Dr. Nathan Chutas, Ph.D., CPG,
Senior Vice-President of Operations for the Company, is a qualified
person for the purposes of National Instrument 43-101. Dr.
Chutas has reviewed and approved the technical content in this news
release.
Please visit www.freeportresources.com or contact the email
address below for more information.
On behalf of the Board,
Freeport Resources Inc.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services
Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture
Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of
this release.
This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking
Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian
securities laws. When or if used in this news release, the
words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target,
"plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule", "intends" and similar words
or expressions identify forward-looking statements or
information. These forward-looking statements or information
may relate to the intended completion of the Transaction, the
Yandera Copper Project, and other factors or information.
Such statements represent the Company's current views with respect
to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of
assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the
Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic,
competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and
uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause
results, performance or achievements to be materially different
from the results, performance
SOURCE Freeport Resources Inc.