Today's Mining Focus Is K92 Mining Inc

K92 Mining Inc is making major headlines in the mining world. Shares have run up the charts on the back of the company's prospects in Papua New Guinea, its management team, and its recent capital raise. Shares have doubled in the course of a week after K92 announced some major developments. While other junior miners look to be startups, K92 is much more advanced than others after acquiring the Kainantu project from Barrick Gold Corp (NYSE:ABX). Investors are now betting that Barrick's loss is K92's gain.K92’s main asset is the Kainantu project in PNG, which has a large high-grade gold resource (1.84Moz @ 11.6 g/t AuEq. Inferred, and 240,000oz @ 13.3 g/t AuEq. Indicated, Nolidan, April 15th, 2016) and extensive infrastructure including underground mine development, a mill processing facility, a fully permitted tailings pond and paved roads to the site. K92 paid Barrick an initial US$2 million for the mine and if certain milestones are reached, such as producing more than 1 million ounces of gold over the next nine years, K92 would pay an additional US$60 million to Barrick Gold.K92 benefits because Barrick has already invested a lot of time and money into the Kainantu project. Barrick acquired the project back in December 2007 for US$141.5 million from Highland Pacific, which had invested US$80 million into the project. Then, over the course of the next six to seven years, Barrick spent an additional US$100 million on the project. After the drop in gold prices, Barrick was forced to reconsider its capital budget and decided to offload the project.In looking at the project, Kainantu is located in an area of large mines as evidenced by the underlying geology and presence of nearby major projects operated by global majors Barrick, Newcrest and Harmony. There is plenty of exploration and expansion potential within the ML 150 intrusive vein system. There are also additional porphyry and gold vein exploration targets throughout the property.Besides having a great property, a good junior mining speculator knows the next critical piece of the puzzle is the management team behind the junior miner. Do they have a history of making money for shareholders? Do they have a great reputation in the industry? Here, K92 passes with flying colors. K92's management team has built over 20 mines and has been involved in buyouts worth over US$5B combined. The Board of Directors includes Tookie Angus, Chairman (Chairman of Nevsun Resources), Ian Stalker, CEO, and Mark Eaton (Chairman of Belo Sun Mining). The Advisory Board includes Alex Davidson (former EVP Exploration and Corporate Development at Barrick) and Doug Kirwin (member of discovery team for Hugo Dummett deposit at Oyu Tolgoi). Matter of fact, Doug Kirwin has this to say about K92.

THE STRUCTURES HOSTING THE LODES STRIKE FOR SEVERAL KILOMETRES AND HAVE KNOWN VERTICAL EXTENTS OF HUNDREDS OF METRES, AND ARE OPEN BEYOND THIS. THIS INDICATES MULTI-MILLION OUNCE POTENTIAL PROXIMAL THE EXISTING RESOURCE AND THE PROBABILITY OF DISCOVERING PARALLEL VEINS IS HIGH. FURTHER, WHEN ANALYZING DRILL RESULTS, I WAS VERY IMPRESSED WITH THE CONSISTENCY OF THE HIGH GRADE DRILL INTERCEPTS AT KORA. THE RATIO OF HIGH GRADE HITS IS QUITE REMARKABLE.

Another factor that junior mining speculators look at is the country where the mine is based. Papua New Guinea is known as the land of large mines and has a Democratic government headed by a Prime Minister. PNG has proven to be a success for speculators when you look at ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) acquiring InterOil Corp (NYSE:IOC) for US$2.5 billion. If an oil major like ExxonMobil is willing to invest that kind of money into PNG, you know PNG is safe for investors.K92 Mining Inc trades under the symbol KNT in Canada, 92K in Germany, and KNTNF in the US. K92 just closed a non-brokered private placement of 12,500,000 units at $1.00 per unit for gross proceeds of $12,500,000. Each unit issued consisted of one common share and one-half common share purchase warrant, with a whole warrant giving the holder the right to purchase another common share for a period of 12 months from closing at $1.50 per share. With everything K92 Mining has going for it, a long bull run looks to be just getting started. To get the latest updates on K92 Mining, sign up for our free newsletter today!Disclosure: We have no position in K92 Mining and have not been compensated for this article.