The Frieda River copper-gold project is located near the border of the Sandaun and East Sepik Provinces of northwestern Papua New Guinea.  Xstrata Copper holds 81.82% of the Frieda River copper-gold project, a joint venture with Highlands Pacific Limited (18.18%).

Since assuming management control of the Frieda River project in January 2007, Xstrata Copper has conducted an ambitious resource evaluation programme.

In September 2011 Xstrata Copper announced increases in both the total Mineral Resource estimate and Measured and Indicated Resources for the Horse-Ivaal-Trukai (HIT) deposit at the Frieda River copper-gold project in Papua New Guinea. The new HIT resource estimate comprises a total of 2,090 million tonnes at a grade of 0.45% copper, 0.22 grams per tonne gold and 0.7 grams per tonne silver, using a copper cut-off grade of 0.2% copper. This represents 9.4 million tonnes of contained copper metal and 14.8 million ounces of contained gold metal.

Contained copper has increased by 10% in the total Mineral Resource and by 7% in the Measured and Indicated resource categories, compared to the previous update released in February 2011. Importantly, the Measured category now comprises 37% of the estimated total Mineral Resource, a significant increase on the estimate released in February 2011 of 16%. The new estimate includes the results of 139,000 metres of drilling, with 39,000 metres added to the drill database since the last estimate.

In November 2011, Xstrata Copper and Highlands Pacific agreed to extend the completion of the Frieda River Project Feasibility Study by 11 months to December 2012 to evaluate new power supply options.

The Frieda River Project pre-feasibility study, delivered in October 2010, outlined a potential open pit mining operation based on an annual average copper production of 190,000 tonnes per annum and 280,000 ounces per annum of gold, over 20 years.