PNG COPPER INC. announced that it has received geochemical results from 25 rock samples and 7 panned concentrate samples collected during reconnaissance, in August this year, at Yokai prospect, Mt Suckling, Papua New Guinea. Highlights include 7.41 % Cu from sub-outcrop and 0.72 % Cu in outcrop, both samples collected from a garnet-bearing skarn occurrence noted over a 200 m x 50 m area. Five of the 6 samples collected from the skarn contained >0.10 % Cu.

It is not known if the isolated outcrop samples are interconnected. Location and historical background. The Yokai area is located on the southeastern margin of a cluster of Cu-in-rock anomalies found in the Urua-Omu area.

The area is of interest because extensive limestone crops out along the northern slopes of the east-west trending Yokai Valley. These limestones are older than the Late Miocene-Pliocene intrusive rocks found in the Urua-Omu area, and therefore potential exists for the development of Cu mineralised magnetite skarn. The reactive limestones have the potential to literally act as a blotting paper, soaking up ore-elements from circulating hydrothermal fluids from high-level intrusives.

Historical sampling of quartz vein float from Yokai Creek contained 0.37 % Cu. Visible gold was also present in panned samples in Yokai Creek, near its confluence with Waki Creek. Subsequently, an inversion anomaly was identified in the headwaters of Yokai Creek during inversion modelling of Total Magnetic Intensity data obtained during the 2010 low-level detailed airborne magnetic and radiometric survey of the Ada'u Valley.

This modelling was designed to focus on deeper magnetic targets in preference to small and shallow sources, ideal for locating any magnetite skarn mineralisation associated with the Ada'u Limestone. The NNE-SSW trending anomaly, measuring 5 km x 3 km in size, was given a medium priority for followup. Most recently, petrology of 4 limestones from Omu and south of Urua provided the first indications of skarn mineralisation, when chalcopyrite-cuprite-chalcocite assemblages were observed in 3 samples and chalcopyrite in 1 sample.

Present exploration at Yokai. There were two components to the recent reconnaissance mapping and sampling at Yokai. The entire length of Yokai Creek was traversed and mapped and mineralised float was sampled.

A total of 16 rock float and 7 panned concentrate samples were collected during this work. Four rock samples, all mesothermal quartz veins, contained >0.10 % Cu. These anomalous samples were collected from a 1.3 km interval of lower Yokai Creek.

Anomalous Cu contents ranged from 0.13 to 2.04 % Cu. A panned concentrate from a small tributary on the southern banks of lower Yokai Creek contained an anomalous 0.25 g/t Au. Outcrop along Yokai Creek consists of pillow basalt of the Late Oligocene-Middle Miocene Wavera Volcanics.

This submarine volcanic unit is coeval with the similarly aged Ada'u Limestone. There are many field examples of the two units intermingling viz. the formation of submarine limestone-basalt breccias.

The second component of work involved traversing slopes on the northern fall of Yokai Valley, to explore for skarn associated with the nearby Ada'u Limestone. Scattered outcrop of skarn was discovered in a 200 m x 50 m area, located on steep slopes 250 m north of Yokai Creek. A total of 9 rock samples were collected from this zone.

Garnet is present and the zone appears to be structurally controlled. Six samples were skarn: 5 were from outcrop and 1 sample sub-outcrop or scree adjacent to outcropping skarn. Five of the 6 skarn samples contained anomalous Cu values ranging from 0.10 to 7.41 % Cu.

These rocks were described as consisting of a mineral assemblage of quartz-chlorite-epidote- garnet-pyroxene±sulphide. The remaining samples were described as rocks with quartz- sericite±sulphide or limonite-haematite-jarosite-quartz±sulphide, in one case with a gossanous appearance. Of these samples, 2 were outcrop and 1 was a float.

The gossanous sample assayed 0.22 % Cu. Rock and panned concentrate samples collected during the Yokai reconnaissance work were dispatched to Australian Laboratory Services, Brisbane, Australia, for analysis on 5 September 2022. Gold analyses of panned concentrates were completed by aqua regia extraction on a 50 gm sample with Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry finish.

Analyses of rock samples for base and other elements were completed by four acid digestion of a 0.25 gm sample with Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical (Atomic) Emission Spectrometry finish.