This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Prodigy Gold Ltd. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX) remains steadfast in its pursuit of exploration success on the company’s Tanami North project area.
The ASX-listed mining company has a unique greenfields and brownfields exploration portfolio in the proven multi-million ounce Tanami Gold district. With multiple targets permitted for drilling, Prodigy firmly believes that the Tanami and Lake Mackay are some of the final frontiers for gold and base metal discovery where further world-class deposits can still be found.
Prodigy Gold is actively exploring in areas with significant potential for discovery.
Recently, the company released a maiden mineral resource for the Tregony deposit, which is located within the Tanami North project area. Tregony sits between the Groundrush deposit in the south and the Crusade deposit in the north – both under the control of the Central Tanami Project Joint Venture between Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) and Tanami Gold (ASX:TAM).
As Managing Director Mark Edwards explains to Mining.com.au, the company is taking a very modern and technical approach to analysing prospectivity of the Tanami region. So far, this approach has highlighted potential for the next discovery to be made in the NT within the Tanami North Project area, including the Tregony, Hyperion, and Boco prospects.
Edwards tells this news service, while this part of the Granites Tanami Orogen (GTO) in Australia is a significant gold-producing province, to date there has been no significant exploration work completed in many areas that are considered prospective for gold.
And Tregony in particular is a high-priority target area.
“We believe the Suplejack Trend is an under-explored area within one of Australia’s most exciting mineral fields. It is statistically unusual to have a deposit of the scale of the Newmont Tanami Operations, which has an overall gold endowment of well over 10 million ounces, without several smaller, but significant, deposits within the same field. The Groundrush deposit is one example of these types of deposits and this is currently a more than 1 million ounce deposit with a grade of over 4 grams per tonne, with Hyperion and Tregony sitting along strike of the Groundrush deposit it is an obvious target that requires more drilling to truly understand the potential of the project area.
This is one of our key areas for development over the coming field season. This will include the co-funded drilling program at Boco North, which is a large area with no previous drilling work completed below the regional cover sequence.
“So, while we have known deposits like Tregony and Hyperion, there are still many areas with limited and no significant exploration work completed”
So, while we have known deposits like Tregony and Hyperion, there are still many areas with limited and no significant exploration work completed. Groundrush is a great deposit that sits off our southern boundary, if we can replicate this on our tenements this will set Prodigy up for significant growth, this is still an aspirational target, but it is a good target to aspire to.
As such, the growth strategy for the company is to work in and around the trends that offer the greatest chance for success while continuing to work closely with our JV partners over a significant tenement package, currently around 27,000km-square. We are also currently looking to divest some projects which we have determined to be non-core which allows us to focus on these higher ranked targets.”
Mineral potential modelling
At a recent mining conference in Alice Springs attended by the likes of technical teams from the CSIRO and Geoscience Australia (GA), Prodigy’s Exploration Manager Edward Keys presented how a multi-technique Machine learning approach is appropriate as a modern exploration technique when exploring in the Granites-Tanami-Orogen (GTO). A multi-technique approach has been found to reduce systematic uncertainties, enable cross-validation of prospectivity models, and facilitate the comparison of resulting models.
As the MD explains, mineral potential modelling (MPM) of the GTO in Australia is a useful tool to predict gold prospectivity and is enabling Prodigy to compare the performance of these models to others previously generated in the area.
What the company is finding is that mineral prospectivity modelling, or mineral potential mapping, does not provide grade estimates like resource modelling. Rather, the concept predicts where the ground is potentially most prospective based on a number of geological, geochemical, and geophysical variables.
As the company has found, the Random Forest machine learning technique, in particular, is proving to be a superior model for MPM. Recent studies suggest random forest-driven MPM is quite effective and a statistically better performer than other machine learning algorithms or techniques. Random forest is an ensemble-based machine learning algorithm that employs a resampling technique to generate each random set of training samples applied to develop an ‘unpruned’ decision tree. Two-thirds of the labelled data, which are termed in-bag samples, are utilised for training decision trees. The remainder, known as out-of-bag samples, measure the out-of-bag error, termed decision tree impurity.
Edwards says this approach to exploring within the Granites Tanami Orogen places Prodigy in a prime position, particularly amid tumultuous times and volatile commodity prices.
“It is always nice to work in times of high commodity prices as access to funding and all that can be easier but for us now, it isn’t a big issue…”
“I personally believe gold will remain strong while we are in these uncertain economic times, for us it will allow us to look at our deposits with a higher gold price in mind, but I don’t believe gold price has a big effect on what we are doing as we are not in, or close to, production for our projects. It is always nice to work in times of high commodity prices as access to funding and all that can be easier but for us now, it isn’t a big issue as we do have cash in the bank to do the work we are planning after completing the capital raise in October last year.”
Prodigy rounded out Q1 2023 with $6.5 million cash at hand, most of which is being deployed across its assets within the Granites Tanami Orogen – a significant gold-producing province.
Research suggests that in the GTO, future exploration will be facilitated by determining the structural controls on mineralisation and crustal evolution of the orogen. A ‘whole of crust’ model needs to be generated through the multi-scale integration and interpretation of geophysical, geological, and remote sensing data.
The GTO is remote, largely concealed, and variably accessible, which means logistically it can be challenging for companies like Prodigy Gold to explore there. Hence the need to adapt an MPM approach, Edwards adds.
As with much of continental Australia, the GTO is poorly exposed and deeply weathered. A series of younger cover sequences further add to the difficulties of deciphering the complete structural history of the orogen. The architecture of the orogen is that of a basin that has been inverted, deformed, and intruded due to continent-continent collisions, which have resulted in a complex structural framework further complicated by deep weathering and extensive regolith across the region.
The MD explains that Prodigy Gold has embraced the region and considers these characteristics as opportunities rather than hurdles.
Adding ounces and confidence
Combined with the 310,000oz of gold at the Hyperion mineral resource, Prodigy is above 360,000 ounces of gold within this project area. Drilling on both the Tregony and Hyperion prospects this year is intended to add confidence and potentially ounces to the Tanami North project area, Edwards says. Further drilling is planned in 2023 which will also seek to extend the resources along strike and down dip.
As previously mentioned, during Q1 2023 Prodigy Gold released its maiden mineral resource for Tregony, which is in the inferred category. It currently stands at 1.44Mt @ 1.16g/t Au for 54,000oz @ 0.6g/t lower cut-off 0.61Mt @ 1.71g/t Au for 33,700oz @ 1.0g/t lower cut-off.
“Currently 100% of Tregony and over 75% of Hyperion mineral resources are in the inferred category which is the lowest confidence category. Some of the drilling is aimed to add confidence which usually means to close up the drill spacing, so it should not significantly change the amount of mineral resource but should move some of those resources from Inferred into the Indicated category.
“the work planned will be to drill the resource on a closer spacing as well as collect some samples to use in metallurgical testwork to have confidence the resource can be processed using typical methods of extraction…”
Mineral reserves can only be defined from indicated (or measured) resources so if we want to fully assess the mine-ability of the resource we need to increase this confidence and move resources from inferred to indicated. So, the work planned will be to drill the resource on a closer spacing as well as collect some samples to use in metallurgical testwork to have confidence the resource can be processed using typical methods of extraction, usually using a carbon-in-leach plant.”
While field activities have been limited over the past quarter due to the wet season in northern Australia, Prodigy Gold has been quite active during Q1 2023. This includes planning for drilling activities to commence at the end of the wet season in the Tanami North area including Boco North, Tregony, and the Hyperion deposits; reporting results of the Phreaker diamond hole drilled in late 2022; releasing the maiden mineral resource for the Tregony deposit; and updating metallurgical testwork results for the Buccaneer deposit which may form part of a future Scoping Study for the project.
The planning process is complete with the first program to begin in the June 2023 quarter, being the co-funded (under the Resourcing the Territory Program of the NT Government) greenfields exploration program at the Boco North prospect. The program includes the drilling of about 20 RC holes through the ‘unprospective’ sedimentary cover sequence, targeting potential mineralisation related to the regional scale Suplejack Shear Zone.
Edwards says permitting is already in place to allow for the program to start. The area north of Boco received significant rainfall in March resulting in local flooding, however he adds that access to these areas is reopening with people returning to their communities.
After drilling is completed at Boco North, Prodigy Gold intends to move the rig to the Tregony deposit to drill in and around the recently released Tregony mineral resource, with the final planned program for this financial year being a small drilling program around the Hyperion mineral resource.
Results of the Buccaneer metallurgical testwork were also reported in Q1 2023, highlighting the potential for the ore to be processed using traditional recovery methods, rather than heap leaching, opening a clear processing pathway for this deposit.
The company additionally released encouraging results from the Phreaker diamond drillhole completed at the end of 2022. The MD says it has been a great project to work on with IGO (ASX:IGO) over the past few years and while Prodigy Gold has now met all its sole funding requirements it is looking forward to working with IGO on this and other Lake Mackay prospects.
Meanwhile, in November 2022, Prodigy Gold announced the commencement of the drilling of one diamond core drillhole into the Phreaker prospect as part of the sole funding arrangement of the restructured joint venture agreements with IGO. This was a follow-up to the first 2022 drilling program completed in June last year designed to intersect the modelled EM plate down-plunge of the high-grade mineralisation reported in IGO drillhole 21PHDD002.
While Prodigy Gold is adopting mineral potential modelling to take advantage of the prospective GTO, there have been some broader issues not even technology can overcome.
Edwards says like all miners operating in the NT, inclement weather is simply part of the package.
“This work highlights why we consider this project a high priority target area and becoming a focus for our field work in the coming drilling season”
“The biggest challenge we have faced this year has been around gaining access to our projects after the unfortunate flooding that occurred in late March in the communities of Kalkarindji and Lajamanu which are just to the north of our project. This has delayed our access to site, but we are looking to be drilling in June. The news flow will then begin once we commence at Boco North and then Tregony and will continue for a while as we plan to be active in the Tanami region through the dry season.”
Edwards reiterates that weather issues aside, Prodigy was excited to announce the results from its maiden mineral resource at the Tregony prospect.
“This work highlights why we consider this project a high priority target area and becoming a focus for our field work in the coming drilling season.”
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Prodigy Gold Ltd
