Canadian company SJ Geophysics has been contracted by Papuan to complete a 3D-IP geophysical survey over an area of coincident gold in soil and thorium anomaly.

The program will aim to provide additional information to aid in targeting planned deeper drilling of copper porphyry potential.

Sampling completed earlier this year located a narrow "single event" manganese-sulfide breccia within the "Zone A" gold in soil anomaly.

Seven other outcrop samples adjacent to the breccia zone returned anomalous gold contents ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 grams per tonne.

In addition, a recent airborne geophysical survey detected a thorium anomaly underlying the coincident large 1400 metre by 600m gold soil anomaly, providing further indication of a possible copper mineralised porphyry at depth below a "gold cap".

Thorium anomalies are usually associated with porphyry copper deposits in PNG.

PNG outfit Quest Exploration Drilling has been hired to undertake 1500m of drilling.

The first two drillholes are planned in the vicinity of Trench 12, to be followed by two holes in the vicinity of Trench 2.

At least two drillholes of approximately 300m will test the deeper copper porphyry potential below Kuliuta.