Intercepts from the kora deposit, Image courtesy k92 Mining Inc., ©2020Shares of K92 Mining Inc. (TSX-V: KNT) rose one cent Thursday on positive assay results from the Kora North extension of its Kainantu mine in Papua New Guinea.
Across 25 new underground and surface drill holes, the company intercepted multiple promising grades including 22.7 grams of gold per tonne (g/t Au) over 30.1 metres, 5.96 g/t Au over 14.6 metres, and 20.01 g/t Au over 8.08 metres. Most of these were step-outs from the boundary recorded in the company’s 2018 resource estimate, which pegged the deposit at an inferred 1.92 megatonnes at 10.7 g/t Au, for a total of 660,000 ounces. K92 says it has extended the mineralization zone to the south by 225 metres, and that these recent results demonstrate further potential for bulk mining at the target. In its last reported results from Kora, step-out drilling intercepted grades including 107.55 g/t Au over 13.6 metres and 288.73 g/t Au over 13 metres.
The company has already been producing at Kainantu for some time. Driven by a stage two expansion for the mine slated by the end of 2020, K92 projects it will grow production by 34-46% year-over-year, extracting between 110,000 and 120,000 gold-equivalent ounces. It has been steadily ramping up production at the mine quarter by quarter over the past year along with several drill programs aiming to expand the resource.
K92 has been one to watch for awhile now, and on Thursday announced that it had been named to the TSX Venture Exchange’s “Venture 50” list of top performers, ranking #2 in the mining category with a 243% price increase over the past year.
