In 2021, K92 Mining will invest K50 million in exploration.
Exploration dollars are critical, according to John Lewins, chief executive officer and director of K92 Mine, because they extend the project if good prospects are discovered.
The mine was re-commissioned in 2017 and announced commercial production at the start of 2018, according to Lewins.
So, it's been running as a commercial profitable mine for three years and has turned a profit.
“What’s important for Papua New Guinea is that the recognition of the potential that we got here in PNG,” he said. “And that, I think it’s been forgotten to a certain extent over the last few years and we have seen exploration expenditure dropping over several years.”
Lewins also said that they would like to see that start up again because there will be no more mines unless there are more explorations .“So exploration dollars are important,” he said. “This year, 25 per cent of all exploration dollars come from our company. I believe, we are the single largest company in terms of our expenditure in exploration and that’s our commitment.”
When the company's explorations linked the kora North deposit to its main ore body, it reached pay dirt and turned around its fortunes.
He said, “Its only Kora North but we are busy looking for a number of other deposits and we are not focusing just on Kora and the mine. But we got over 700 square kilometres of ground to run and our budget is K50m on explorations. We are spending a lot of money on exploration and that’s the profit that we made or money that we made is put back to look into it or production in Papua New Guinea”.
