South Pacific Metals Corp. has begun the first phase of field exploration at its Kili Teke Copper-Gold Project in Hela Province, targeting mineralisation beyond the project's existing 4.2-million-ounce gold-equivalent inferred resource as it advances toward its maiden drilling campaign later this year.
The Vancouver-based explorer said more than 95% of historical drilling across the 253-square-kilometre licence focused on a single porphyry centre that hosts the current National Instrument 43-101 inferred resource. The latest exploration program is aimed at assessing the broader licence area, where machine-learning analysis has identified 14 ranked drill targets, including six classified as high priority.
Exploration Manager Octavio Garcia said the project offers considerable upside outside the existing resource.
"This is a licence that has been drilled in one place and looked at almost everywhere else," Garcia said, noting that the highest copper and gold grades reported on the property occur in skarn mineralisation excluded from the current resource estimate.
The field team has collected 52 rock samples, which have been dispatched to an independent laboratory for analysis. No assay results are currently available. The program includes geological mapping and target validation designed to narrow the list of prospects ahead of drilling planned for the second half of 2026.
Among the key exploration targets is a skarn corridor adjacent to the existing resource, where historical drilling intersected 7.8 metres grading 12.98% copper and 11.75 grams of gold per tonne within a broader mineralised zone. Surface rock-chip samples previously returned copper grades of up to 27.5%.
The company is also evaluating the Ridge Gold prospect, an alkalic gold target located about 40 kilometres from the Porgera gold mine, and a second undrilled porphyry target identified through magnetic inversion modelling. The existing Kili Teke porphyry resource also remains open at depth, with historical drilling indicating the potential for a higher-grade copper core below the current resource model.
South Pacific Metals said the exploration campaign follows months of engagement with customary landowners and government authorities in Hela Province. Community awareness meetings were held earlier this year, and local field technicians have been employed to support the program.
Executive Chairman Michael Murphy said the company had reached a significant milestone by returning its technical team to Kili Teke following the acquisition of the project.
"The resource is the floor. This program is about the rest of it," Murphy said, referring to the project's existing 4.2-million-ounce gold-equivalent inferred resource.
South Pacific Metals expects fieldwork to continue throughout the year, with additional mapping and sampling planned as it advances priority targets toward drilling. Assay results will be released once laboratory testing and validation are completed.
