Tanami West
Overview
The Tanami West Project Area is strategically important to Prodigy Gold and is located 650km to the north-west of Alice Springs.
The Project covers an area of approximately 2,248km², consisting of
- 16 Granted Exploration Titles – 1,976km²
- 2 Exploration Application Titles – 803km²
- 2 Granted Mineral Leases covering the Twin Bonanza Mining Area
The Tanami West Project hosts two current Mineral Resources
- Buccaneer – 9.20Mt @ 1.2g/t Au for 359Koz¹
- Old Pirate – 0.76Mt @ 4.7g/t Au for 115Koz²
- Total inventory – 9.96Mt @ 1.5g/t Au for 474Koz
There are several prospects located around the project, within the regional Trans-Tanami Fault Zone. Prospects such as Vampire on EL28327, Casa on EL31291, Blackcat on EL28325 and Galaxy on EL31290 still require further exploration to advance the understanding of the potential of these prospects.
The Project also has great infrastructure available with a camp located near the Old Pirate Deposit and access using the Tanami Road and the Old Pirate mine access haul road.
¹ASX: 11 August 2023 ²ASX:19 August 2016
Key Deposits and Prospects
There are several key projects that occur at the Tanami West Project, these include:
ML29822 and ML33459
- Buccaneer – Current Mineral Resource
- Old Pirate – Current Mineral Resource
- Bandit – Prospect with previous drilling
EL31291
- Casa – Prospect with previous trenching & drilling
EL28327
- Vampire – Prospect with previous trenching & drilling
EL31290
- Galaxy – Prospect with previous drilling
EL28325
- Blackcat – Prospect with previous trenching & drilling
There are other exploration targets requiring further work, such as Maverick, Capstan and Perisher, however the prospects listed above are the current priority targets for the Tanami West Project Area.
Regional Geological Setting
The local geology of the Tanami West Project area is dominated by the Killi Killi, Dead Bullock and Mt Charles Formations of the Tanami Group. Overlying these gold hosting formations, are the Pargee Sandstone and the Birrindudu Group cover sequences. These cover sequences are often expressed as the hills in the area, for example the Davidson Tablelands to the west of the Galaxy Prospect. The project area has then been intruded by granite bodies including at Buccaneer. The area is poorly exposed with up to 95% sand cover.
The western side of the project area has been sub-divided into two principal geological domains. The Bonanza area, which is host to the Old Pirate and Buccaneer Deposits and is typified by a low magnetic response. This low magnetic response is interpreted to correspond to the Killi Killi Formation and granitic intrusions. The Old Pirate Mine is located within this sequence.
The eastern side of the project area is dominated by high magnetic response, which is interpreted to correlate with the prospective Dead Bullock and Mt Charles Formations which are the host rocks to Newmont’s Callie deposit and Central Tanami open pits respectively.
Project History
Old Pirate and Buccaneer Deposits
The Old Pirate Deposit was first recognised in outcropping veins in the late 1990s by North Flinders Mines. The Buccaneer Deposit was originally discovered by North Flinders Mines in the late 1990s through soil sampling and follow up RAB drilling. On 28 January 2010 Prodigy announced an offer to purchase a tenement package from Newmont Asia Pacific (Newmont) for a cash consideration of $10.775 Million, this purchase included the Old Pirate and Buccaneer Deposits.
In 2014 the Mineral Lease ML29822 was granted to cover the two mineral resources, this was later split into 2 mineral titles, being ML33459 (Old Pirate) and ML29822 (Buccaneer).
Mining History for the Old Pirate Project
The Old Pirate Deposit has been mined using two different methods. The first method was a trial mine that tested the higher-grade veins on surface and processed the material on site using a standard gravity plant. The second method was a more traditional truck and shovel methods with ore transported to the leased Coyote processing plant in Western Australia for traditional CIL processing.
- Trial Mining resulted in 8.1Kt @ 15.4g/t Au mined for 3.5Koz sold
- Traditional Mining resulted in 155Kt @ 5.9g/t Au mined for 29.3Koz sold
Camp Scale Opportunities for Discovery
Several exploration targets are located within close proximity to the projects Mineral Resources. These include:
- Blackcat – Located 27km to the southwest of Old Pirate on EL28325. The prospect has a peak rock chip assay of 19.25g/t Au¹ with mineralisation seen over a 700m strike length
- Galaxy – Located 50km to the east of Old Pirate on EL31290. Historic drilling intersected 2.0m @ 26.8g/t Au and 2.0m @ 19.2g/t Au². Located along strike from Jims Open Pit mine (50% TAM/50%NST)
- Casa – Located 12km to the southeast of Old Pirate on EL31291. Rock chips reported by North Flinders Mines in 1998 up to 13.5g/t Au³ and 2016 results up to 33.9g/t Au⁴. Shallow RAB drilling did not follow up these results
- Bandit – Located 2.5km to the southeast of Old Pirate on ML33459. The prospect has a reported drill intercept of 5m @ 3.12g/t⁵ and similar geology to Old Pirate.
- Vampire – Located 15km northeast of Old Pirate on EL28327. Rock chip sampling by Otter Exploration produced results up to 83g/t Au⁶. Historic drilling returned maximum gold assays of 8.18, 4.16, 3.59 and 2.27g/t gold⁷
- There are other potential targets noted at the project, however the focus is on the above 5 due to location/similarity to previous operating mines at Old Pirate or Central Tanami
¹ASX: 1 February 2011 ²ASX:28 November 2011 ³ASX: 27 July 2016 ⁴ASX:28 November 2011 ⁵ASX:28 November 2011 ⁶CR2001-0074; ⁷ASX:9 September 2015
