LCL Resources has signed a binding farm-in and joint venture term sheet with Rio Tinto Exploration (PNG) over the Liamu copper gold project in southern Papua New Guinea. Rio Tinto can earn an initial 51 percent by sole funding at least A$6 million of exploration, including 3,000 metres of drilling, within five years. It can then move to 80 percent by spending a further A$40 million, or by defining a JORC resource of at least 1 million tonnes of contained copper or copper equivalent and completing a scoping study.
LCL stays on as operator and earns a management fee of up to 10 percent of exploration expenditure, and Rio Tinto must spend at least $200,000 within 12 months of obtaining land access before it can withdraw. The deal is subject to PNG ministerial approval and registration against exploration licence EL2432, with a termination deadline of September 30, 2027 if conditions are not met.
This is the second Rio Tinto farm-in over LCL’s PNG portfolio, following the Ono project agreement announced on March 23, 2026, and it takes the majors’ potential funding commitments across LCL’s assets toward $100 million. Executive chairman Chris van Wijk called the second agreement a strong endorsement of the portfolio and of the groundwork at the Dada and Ubei prospects.
The initial drilling target is Dada, an undrilled gold copper porphyry discovery where 2024 trenching returned 96 metres at 0.41 grams per tonne gold, including 19 metres at 0.43 grams per tonne gold and 0.16 percent copper, within a soil and pit anomaly of about 600 by 400 metres that stays open east and west. The causative intrusion has not yet been identified. Rio Tinto will also review the high grade Ubei prospect, where rock chips have returned up to 367.7 grams per tonne gold and 4.29 percent copper. LCL notes that PNG’s terrain, helicopter logistics and scarce drill rigs made drilling prohibitively expensive for a company of its size, which is the economic logic of the farm-in structure. LCL shares rose about 23 percent on the announcement to $0.008, on a market capitalisation of roughly $10 million.