Shareholders of Toronto-listed, Brisbane-based WCB voted in favour of the scrip deal earlier this week, paving the way for the Supreme Court of British Columbia to approve it overnight.

Kingston now owns the Misima gold project in Papua New Guinea, a historical Placer Dome mine with a NI 43-101 resource of 2.3 million ounces at 1 gram per tonne gold.

The company plans to update that to a JORC-compliant resource before the end of this month and is looking to restart exploration.

Four target areas have been identified with the aim to grow the resource.

At Umuna East, surface channelling has returned 20m at 4.07gpt gold; 40m at 1.95gpt gold; 18m at 1.91gpt gold; and 188m at 0.81gpt gold.

Previous drilling to be followed up at Misima North returned 8m at 4.68gpt gold from 8m; 10m at 2.36gpt gold from surface; and 10m at 3.2gpt gold from surface.

“We are immediately commencing work on Misima which includes completing a JORC resource, and re-establishing a field team incorporating current and new operational personnel who will be recommencing geochemical field work shortly,” Kingston managing director Andrew Corbett said.

An exploration manager for Misima will be appointed shortly.

The company is aiming to start drilling in the first half of next year.

Kingston holds 49% of Misima currently, but is earning up to 70% from Pan Pacific Copper, joint venture between JX Nippon Mining and Metals and Mitsui Mining and Smelting.

Kingston had $3.1 million in cash at the end of September, and is fully funded to meet the remaining JV expenditure of $1.9 million by March 2019.

The company will also continue work on its 50,000oz Livingstone gold project in Western Australia, and lithium projects in the Northern Territory.

Kingston shares were unchanged at 2.1c, capitalising the company at $14 million. The stock has risen by more than 30% since the merger was announced in September.