Trigg Mining expands footprint at Lake Throssell potash project, commences rights trading
Maiden air core drilling at Trigg’s WA project is due to start next week.
Trigg Mining (ASX: TMG) has lodged a new tenement application which, once granted, will enlarge its Lake Throssell sulphate of potash (SOP) project in Western Australia to 937sq km.
The new ground application includes interpreted extensions to the south of the recently discovered palaeovalley. This includes a large, interpreted bend in the paleochannel.
Previously, Trigg’s Lake Throssell SOP project covered about 694sq km of granted and pending tenements, within which there is 190sq km of salt lake playa and 70km of underlying interpreted palaeochannels.
The project is located 170km east of Laverton on the Great Central Road connecting Laverton, WA to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.
Last month, Trigg announced the discovery of the large-scale palaeovalley, a structure defined as a remnant of an inactive river or stream channel that has been filled or buried by younger sediment.
The company’s gravity survey confirmed the presence of the palaeovalley beneath Lake Throssell. It has been modelled to a depth of about 120m below surface.
Maiden air core drilling starts next week
The deep structure has an apparent northeast-southwest trend, is potentially up to 6km wide in places and extends for about 46km under Trigg’s granted tenement.
The company said today that the maiden air core drilling to test the indications of a palaeovalley will begin next week.
The program will see up to 23 holes drilled and is designed to establish a maiden resource estimate for Lake Throssell, which is due to be completed before the end of the year.
This latest tenement application covers 55km of the Great Central Road, which will improve project access and future layout options for project development and logistics.
Unique potash position
Trigg said it is in the “unique” position of having 100% ownership of a significant SOP project as the cornerstone of a potential future SOP production hub.
The state and federal governments are sealing the Great Central Road to establish the Outback Highway, which will connect WA to the NT and Queensland. Work on the first 40km is underway.
Rainfall over millions of years, carried through paleochannels below what are now desert areas, has accumulated beneath the surface with high potassium content and the area’s now-high evaporation rate of about 3m a year has left large brine resources.
Trigg has said previously that the most prospective portion of the palaeovalley sequence (the thalweg, or deepest part of the ancient riverbed, in some places 2km wide) is most likely to host sand-rich aquifers, which in turn contain the potassium in brine.
Rights trading commences on ASX
In a separate statement on Wednesday, Trigg advised that rights to the company’s renounceable rights issue announced in September have commenced trading on the ASX under the ticker code ‘TMGR’.
The rights issue is seeking to raise $2.3 million through the issue of two new shares for every seven shares held at an offer price of $0.14 per share, together with one free attaching option for every two new shares subscribed for and issued.
The free attaching options will be exercisable at $0.25 each and expire on 31 October 2022.
The rights issue is partially underwritten up to $1 million by lead manager Mahe Capital.