The District Commissioner
Addendum 49: Mt Kare Gold Mining Area
Additional information for Chapter 25 - Back to the Highlands at Wabag and discovering gold at Mt Kare
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Mt Kare is located about 600km northwest of Port Moresby in PNG’s Enga Province. It lies 15km southwest of Barrick Gold’s Porgera gold mine. It is estimated that more than A$60 million has been spent on the Mt Kare area by several companies, including funding the cost of 454 diamond drill holes totalling almost 74,000m. Delisted ASX company Indochine Mining Limited had acquired the project in 2011 and announced the 2.1Moz historical mineral resource estimate in 2013. However, the company was placed into voluntary administration in 2015 and the exploration licence, which expired in 2014, was not renewed.
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In 2017, the PNG Mineral Resource Authority confirmed GMG had priority over the exploration licence application, but this was challenged by Tribune in the courts. The two parties ended
up settling their disputes and agreeing to work together.
In 2019 Australian junior RTG Mining joined the list of Mt Kare hopefuls by entering into binding Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the two priority applicants to acquire a majority 80% stake in the project for A$27m if and when successful in securing the new exploration licence. The two vendors are GMG Global Mining Group Limited (GMG) and Tribune Mt. Kare Limited (Tribune). RTG said it would focus exploration on the depth potential of the deposit, with Mt Kare being situated on the same north-east trending structure as the Porgera mine with similar geology including the same host rocks, mineralisation types and age, and similar geological structures.
David Marsh describes in Chapter 25 how he discovered gold at Mt Kare in 1951 which he believed was connected to Porgera in some way. In that chapter he also refers to two excellent books which describe the complex history of gold prospecting and PNG politics in this region.
A tragic landslide occurred on 24 May 2024 in Mulitaka in Enga Province. Recovery work is ongoing and thousands may be buried.
Photo of Gold Miners digging at Mt Kare was sourced from getty images at www.gettyimages.com.au/photos/papua-new-guinea-gold-mining. Contributor Bojan Brecelj. Editorial Number 528087402. Collection Corbis Historical. Date Created 1 January, 1990.
The map was sourced from page 64 of the book “Mount Kare Gold Rush Papua New Guinea 1988 – 1994 As told by Andi Flower written by Dave Henton and Andi Flower and published in 2007.