Asiamet increasing effective interest in Beutong copper-gold project

The AIM-traded firm said as a result, a single milestone payment of AUD 4.375m (£2.454m) was made to increase its effective ownership in PT Emas Mineral Mumi from 40% to 80% by acquiring the remaining 50% of Beutong Resources that it did not already own.

It said Emas Mineral Mumi, 80% owned by BRPL, wholly owned the Beutong Copper-Gold Deposit in Nagan Raya Regency, Aceh, Indonesia.

Beutong was held under a mining business license for production operations - ‘IUP-OP’ - which provided for an initial 20 year licence tenure which could be extended twice, each for a period of 10 years, totalling 40 years.

Asiamet said it was the key licence required to advance the Beutong Project to the development stage.

The board described Beutong as a large high-quality copper, gold, silver, molybdenum deposit outcropping at surface and remaining open laterally and at depth.

Its resources contained 2.4Mt copper, 2.1Moz gold and 20.6Moz silver on a 100% basis, or 1.92Mt copper, 1.68Moz gold and 16.48Moz silver on an 80% attributable basis, reported in accordance with the requirements of JORC 2012.

Beutong was said to be “very favourably” located with regard to infrastructure and logistics, with the project adjacent to a sealed road and approximately 60 km from a large power station and seaport.

There was “significant scope” to expand the mineral inventory with recent drilling intersecting 456.0m at 1.06% CuEq - 0.93% Cu, 0.15g/t Au - from 10.0m, extending the mineralisation beyond the current JORC resource envelope, and remaining open to depth and laterally.

Recent assays reportedly suggested that a “significant proportion” of the Beutong East Porphyry copper mineralisation could potentially be processed by heap leach to produce cathode copper, with extensive metallurgical test work to further assess that potential required.

“Asiamet is extremely pleased to substantially lift its interest in this advanced high quality copper-gold project at a time when the copper market is forecast to be moving into supply deficit and large copper development opportunities with nearby infrastructure are rare,” said Asiamet chief executive Peter Bird.

“Achieving this major milestone doubles the company's attributable contained metal inventory in Beutong to 1.92Mt copper, 1.68Moz gold and 16.48Moz silver.”

Bird said the deposit remained open both laterally and at depth, with recent drilling at Beutong East hole BEU0900-08 extending mineralisation beyond the current resource envelope and terminating, due to rig depth capacity, in mineralisation grading 1.14% Cu.

“The company looks forward to reporting on progress at Beutong as the recently mobilised deeper capacity drill rig ramps up and development activities incorporating evaluation drilling, metallurgy and geotechnical activities gain momentum in the second half of 2018.”