Dittmer Project
The Dittmer Project contains the historic, high-grade Dittmer mine which was discovered in 1934 and produced over 54,000 Oz of gold through to 1951. Ballymore has reopened old underground workings at the Dittmer mine and is assessing the potential for near term restart.
Tenements
The Dittmer Project is located 20km west of Proserpine in Central Queensland and comprises two granted MLs, one ML application and three granted EPMs covering an area of 513 km2. The Dittmer Project is located 20 – 50 km west and southwest of the regional centre of Proserpine in central Queensland.
Regional potential summary
The historic Dittmer Mine forms one of several old high-grade workings along a 2km north-northeast trending corridor which is also crosscut by a series of structures with associated historical workings. Field work, including mapping, rock chip, soil and stream sediment sampling, was completed by Ballymore in 2023 to assess Dittmer’s size potential.
Other nearby workings are primarily shallow, open pit mines that operated between the 1890’s and 1930’s and mined at average grades of up to 567 g/t (e.g. Loch Neigh Mine) with copper grades not reported. Despite the presence of extensive workings in the area, this corridor has undergone little or no modern exploration.
Exploration Program
2023 was a transformational year for Ballymore with ongoing success at Dittmer, including exceptional drilling results, further extending the known mineralisation associated with the newly recognised hangingwall lode. Preliminary metallurgical testwork has confirmed that the ore is amenable to processing via both cyanide leach and flotation processes. Field work has demonstrated that Dittmer forms part of a major mineralised system and only a small portion of it has been drilled to date. In December 2023, the Company considerably strengthened its balance sheet with an $11.1 million funding package, including a placement, Entitlement Offer as well as securing US$5m project funding for Dittmer from Taurus Mining Royalty Fund L.P. (finalised 20 March 2024).
The Stage 4 drill program was completed from underground drill sites, targeting interpreted high-grade shoots in the displaced extension of the Duffer Lode. These additional holes were designed to infill the area of previous drilling and target the structure at depth. The program comprised 14 drill holes (DTDD029 – 042B) for a total of 2,933.1m.
Ballymore has received a Queensland Government CEI grant for $300,000 to undertake an 8,051 line-kilometre, low level heli-borne gradient magnetic and radiometric survey covering our entire Dittmer Project area as well as the neighbouring Julivon Creek EPM, held by our project partner for this survey, BGM Investments Pty Ltd (BGM). The Dittmer Project hosts a range of vein-hosted, breccia-hosted, skarn-hosted and porphyry-style deposits dominated with copper, gold, silver and other base and critical minerals. The survey area covers numerous historic mines and prospects including porphyry-related copper deposits (e.g. Julivon Creek/Copperhead, Andromache) and vein- and stockwork-hosted gold-copper epithermal and mesothermal deposits (e.g. Dittmer, Cedar Ridge).
