A partnership agreement with mining major Anglo American looks set to fast-track exploration activities at Arc Exploration’s Trenggalek gold project in Indonesia.
The 300 square kilometre project, in the southern mountains of East Java, sits along the same belt as Intrepid Mines’ Tujuh Bukit copper-gold deposit, which holds an estimated resource of 25 million ounces of gold.
“This new agreement with Anglo American is a very positive step forward for Arc Exploration,” Arc managing director John Carlile said.
“Our exploration results to date indicate that Trenggalek is an area with major gold potential.”
An ongoing exploration program conducted by Anglo will be used to review the project’s potential, with the objective of moving the project towards resource estimation.
Anglo recently undertook high-resolution airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys over the entire 300sqkm tenement, and is currently engaged in ground geochemical
sampling and mapping in selected areas.
The objective of these surveys is to obtain new data to identify porphyry copper-gold systems and generate additional targets for further exploration.
“With activity underway, the new data uncovered by Anglo American will help focus in on further targets for near-term drill testing,” Mr Carlile said.
Following survey completion and results evaluation, Anglo may elect to earn a majority interest in Trenggalek through the sole funding of ongoing activities at the project.
“This Trenggalek agreement builds on both our existing strategic alliance with Anglo American in Papua and our recent engagement to undertake geological evaluation and exploration services for Anglo American in Indonesia,” Mr Carlile said.
Initial scout drilling at Trenggalek in July 2011 confirmed the potential for multiple gold resources in an extensively mineralised epithermal field that has been largely unexplored, with in 53 holes drilled for 6460m at seven prospects including Sentul,  Kojan and Buluroto.
Results included 2m grading 17.3 grams per tonne of gold at Sentul, 1.9m grading 11.3g/t of gold at Kojan and 2m grading 8.7g/t gold at Buluroto.

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