Trigg Minerals to extend gold interests in Queensland

Trigg Minerals is extending its gold focus in Queensland as it continues to explore ways of extracting value from the stalled Lake Throssell sulphate of potash project in the northern Goldfields.

Trigg this week told the ASX it had entered into a binding term sheet with Boadicea Resources to acquire 90 per cent in four new licence areas across 431sqkm in northern Queensland.

Trigg said the acquisition would position it as a prominent new gold explorer in the Drummond Basin-Charters Towers region.

It said it would pay $20,000 in cash and issue $300,000 worth of shares to Boadicea to acquire the 90 per cent stakes.

Boadicea will retain a 10 per cent free-carried interest in the four tenements through to mining feasibility upon which time it has the option to participate, sell or convert its share to a royalty.

Boadicea managing director Cath Norman said the transaction launched the company’s new strategy and direction.

“By selling the majority interest in our Queensland projects and being free-carried on all expenditure for the remaining interest, we are freeing up capital and resources to dedicate to our core exploration tenements in Western Australia,” she said.

Trigg’s deal also complements its purchase of the Drummond gold and copper project 150km south of Townsville from Rush Resources, which was completed this week.

Trigg on Tuesday said it would be reviewing historical data from the project to identify targets for exploration and drilling in the first quarter of next year.

Trigg’s Queensland moves come after it put its flagship Lake Throssell sulphate of potash project east of Laverton on hold in April in the wake of a collapse in investor confidence in the nascent industry.

The company last month said it had engaged an experienced geological team to review alternative mineral prospectivity across all its exploration tenements in WA.

Trigg also said it had noted the significant operational and development challenges encountered in sulphate of potash developments across WA, including those at Salt Lake Potash’s Lake Way project, and the commissioning challenges at Kalium Lakes’ Beyondie project.

“Trigg believes these processing challenges have undermined the value of the SOP industry broadly and SOP assets specifically,” it said.

“While the macro drivers of value for a SOP product strongly persist, it is the board’s position it will be very challenging to develop the Lake Throssell project commercially using the traditional solar process.

“As a result, Trigg has suspended all project development work on its SOP projects, except new process technology work.

“Trigg has strategically focused on solving critical technical roadblocks to SOP processing.

“Current testwork will complete in Q4 2023 and, subject to the successful demonstration of an alternative pre-processing approach, will expand to building a demonstration-scale plant.

“The strategic value of solving pre-processing salt homogeneity issues has the potential to unlock the value of existing production processes and resolve the recovery issues that have hindered the SOP industry.

“The success of this innovative processing technology will potentially open the value of the Lake Throssell project and will possibly reignite the SOP industry as a whole.”

Trigg this week also said Timothy Morrison had taken over as non-executive chair of the company, replacing Mike Ralston, who remains as a non-executive director.

Mr Ralston assumed day-to-day management of the company after managing director and chief executive Keren Paterson resigned in August.