Great Pacific Gold has started a 5,000m drill programme at the Anteruno target within the Kesar project, situated in the Eastern Highlands province of Papua New Guinea (PNG).

The Anteruno target is just one of several within a 5km x 5km area in the Kesar concession's south-east corner, adjacent to K92 Mining’s Kainantu mine concessions.

Under the programme, 13 drill holes are planned to explore the Anteruno target, which features a vein-set/stockwork zone measuring approximately 1,000m x 200m.

The first two holes, KDH-01 and KDH-03, aim to investigate the northern and eastern vein stockworks, respectively.

These areas were identified through geochemical analysis and surface mapping.

A 1:2,000 scale mapping exercise has also been initiated across the entire area to pinpoint additional drilling targets for future exploration campaigns.

The initial phase of drilling at Anteruno will utilise two diamond drill rigs operating around the clock.

Great Pacific Gold director Chris Muller said: “Great Pacific Gold has assembled a large land position within PNG, with multiple excellent projects. Kesar is a very exciting project to start the next phase of GPAC exploration in PNG, which is drilling.

“The sampling work done at Kesar, including extensive soil work and at outcrop and artisanal workings, has produced some superb drill targets.”

Several veins at Kesar are on strike and have the same orientation as key K92 deposits like Kora.

Great Pacific Gold said exploration work at Kesar has so far revealed that these veins have high grades of gold present in outcrop, very elevated gold in soil grades and are coincident with aeromagnetic highs.

Two rounds of soil and rock sampling undertaken earlier this year are claimed to have yielded better results.

Great Pacific Gold has a portfolio of exploration stage projects in PNG and Australia. The company develops gold-copper resources from its highly prospective land packages.