Canadian Company Island Passage Nears Historic Drilling Milestone in PNG's Bougainville

 Canadian Island Passage Exploration Limited is on track to begin drilling at its Exploration Licence 02 (EL02) project in central Bougainville,Papua New Guinea with work expected to start in late August or September.

The Canadian exploration company holds a licence covering approximately 250 to 261 square kilometres along the Crown Prince Range, about nine kilometres southeast of the historic Panguna copper mine.

Chairman and CEO Donald McInnes said the upcoming campaign would be the first drilling undertaken outside the Panguna area in more than five decades.

"We're excited to be approaching this milestone because it represents the first drilling program outside Panguna on Bougainville in over 50 years," he said.

Despite the company's optimism, Mr McInnes emphasised that mineral exploration remains a high-risk industry.

"Only a very small percentage of exploration projects ever become producing mines. While we believe Bougainville has excellent potential, there is still a possibility that exploration could stop if the results are not favourable," he said.

He explained that successful drilling would allow the company to move towards a scoping study and, if enough mineralisation is identified, declare a mineral resource.

Mr McInnes said Island Passage has made significant progress since commencing operations in Bougainville two-and-a-half years ago.

He said exploration has returned copper samples of up to 14 per cent, considerably higher than the average grades historically mined at Panguna, although those results are not representative of the overall project.

The company's exploration program has also expanded rapidly, with more than 5,000 samples collected this year after gathering 3,700 samples in 2025 and over 1,100 samples during its earlier work.

According to Mr McInnes, the increasing amount of geological information is improving confidence in selecting future drill targets.