South Pacific Metals Corp. has announced the commencement of its maiden drilling program at Ontenu Northeast prospect within its Osena project area, Papua New Guinea.
The project is located within a major NE-SW corridor known as the Kainantu Transfer Zone, which also hosts the large Kainantu Gold-Copper mine, operated by K92 Mining Ltd.
The drilling will test whether the northwest-trending mineralised structures discovered by SPMC (and described in the September 17, 2025, and October 6, 2025, news releases) are surface expressions of deeper epithermal Au-Cu veins, similar to those currently mined by K92 at their Kora and Judd deposits.
Targets include recently discovered mineralised structures where surface samples returned up to 3.95 g/t Au, 645 g/t Ag, and 1.56% Cu across a 6-m-wide outcrop.
Additionally, five other structures with rock chip samples containing up to 13.9 g/t Au and 388 g/t Ag will also be tested.
The Company expects to drill four to six holes, totalling approximately 1,500m, by the end of the 2025 field season.
“The drill program marks a major milestone for South Pacific. Ontenu Northeast has not been drilled before,” said Timo Jauristo, CEO of the company.
Jauristo added, “The whole team is excited to start drilling these holes, aimed at testing the deeper parts of these mineralised structures for high-grade epithermal Au-Cu veins.
“The first drill hole is planned to intersect several of these structures at depths between 100m and 250m. The remainder of the program will further test this structure as well as some of the other mineralised structures.”
