Trigg Minerals’ move into gold already paying dividends at Drummond Basin

Trigg Minerals’ (ASX: TMG) expansion into precious metals exploration is already showing promising signs with studies unveiling gold potential at the recently-acquired Drummond Basin project in northern Queensland.

Best known as a leader in the search and development of sulphate of potash for the fertiliser market, Trigg recently acquired the Drummond Basin project to expand its options.

It completed the acquisition of the Drummond project from a subsidiary of Andromeda Metals (ASX: ADN) in late November and immediately began work to prepare for exploration activities in early 2024.

Drummond incorporates five granted exploration permits covering 540 sq km in the Drummond Basin, 150km south of Townsville.

It is close to several major gold discoveries and producers, with significant gold endowment within 70km of the project area including Pajingo (~3.6 million ounces, producing up to 230,000oz of gold per year), Yandan (~0.9Moz), Wirralie (~0.3Moz) and Mount Coolon (~0.6Moz).

The area has also been found to contain minor polymetallic skarn and porphyry copper-gold style mineralisation has also been reported.

The move into gold exploration is already looking likely to pay off, with recent studies completed by geological and technical consultancy firm Global Ore Discovery identifying a number of targets to follow up.

Global Ore is assisting Trigg with the compilation and analysis of all available technical data encompassing the entire project area.

Work completed to date on the project includes acquisition of historical exploration and open-file datasets, with extensive coverage of surface geochemistry, drilling, geophysics and surface geology.

Target generation activities

Global Ore has also helped Trigg convert all historic reports, including mapping and desktop work, to digitally-accessible formats to facilitate the extraction of valuable historic data, exploration rationales and targets.

The vast amount of information from combined historical datasets is being integrated, analysed, synthesised and visualised in 2D/3D software.

To date, Trigg and Global have defined and are ranking and prioritising multiple epithermal gold systems using regional multi-million-ounce gold deposit analogues including those from surrounding projects.

High priority gold targets identified to date include Breccia Hill, Bunyip, Quartz Ridge, Limey Trend, Buried Hatchet and Charlie’s Mine.

Geophysics program

Trigg and Global Ore are now compiling a planned geophysics program that will guide the final design of a drilling campaign at Drummond Basin to follow up the priority targets identified to date.

Chair Timothy Morrison said tenders are currently being received from several local companies for drilling anticipated late Q1 or early Q2, dependent on weather.

“While summer weather events in northern Queensland impacted Trigg’s plans to commence site work in the Drummond Basin, I am pleased to report that significant desktop work has continued to advance the project,” Mr Morrison said.

“Working on the extensive historical database as part of the acquisition of the Drummond assets has enabled Trigg to identify high-value targets across the project area.”

“As this work continues, we are now looking to hit the ground running and are planning a drilling program to test these targets to potentially commence later this quarter.”

On the same day as it closed the Drummond Basin acquisition, Trigg also entered into a binding term sheet to acquire a 90% interest in four new licence areas comprising 431 sq km in northern Queensland from Boadicea Resources (ASX: BOA).

“In parallel, we also continue to finalise the transaction with Boadicea which expands our footprint in the region in two areas well-known for their epithermal and intrusive-related gold mineralisation,” Mr Morrison said.