Aussie explorer Far East Gold (ASX: FEG) has finalised its acquisition of the Trenggalek Copper Gold Project located on the Sunda-Banda Arc in the East Java Province – further cementing its foothold in Indonesia.

Trenggalek has been identified as a ‘Top-3 Priority’ greenfield gold project by the Indonesian Government’s Department of Energy and Mining (ESDM). The advanced 12,813-hectare tenement is believed to be highly prospective for epithermal and porphyry related copper, gold and base metal deposits and contains 12 defined prospect areas.

“We first became interested in this project in 2019 because of its remarkable prospectivity, its advanced status being already licensed to develop and operate a mine and its potential to host significant copper-gold porphyry deposits,” Far East Gold CEO Shane Menere said.

The project was granted an Izin Usaha Pertambangan – Operasi Producsi (IUP-OP) mining licence for operation and production until 24 June 2029. Far East Gold has the ability to extend the licence for two further ten year periods.

The IUP-OP is located within the Sunda-Banda Arc, which is recognised as an important

metallogenic belt that is host to several world-class porphyry and related mineral deposits including Tujuh Bukit/Tumpangpitu, Batu Hijau and Onto/Hu’u.

Mr Menere lauded the company’s team in Indonesian for engaging with government and the local community to ensure that Far East Gold obtained the crucial social licence needed to progress the project going forward.

Trenggalek’s previous exploration and future plans

Far East Gold has identified four priority prospect areas for next phases of advanced exploration, including Sumber Bening which was picked up by the Anglo American exploration group as a top priority drill target within Trenggalek.

The Sumber Bening prospect remains undrilled and the company has designed an initial 10-hole, 4,200-metre drill program to test defined high-sulphidation and porphyry-type targets.

Within the Sentul-Buluroto prospect area, initial drilling of Buluroto intercepted strong copper-gold mineralisation unlike previous reported intercepts in Trenggalek – an encouraging result highlighting yet unrecognised potential for porphyry-related gold-copper mineralisation.

Other prospect areas Jerambah and Singgahan, when previously explored by Anglo American and Arc Exploration, returned encouraging signs for the potential to host large-scale porphyry copper-gold deposits.

Overall, historical exploration carried out in Trenggalek includes: 17,786 metres of drilling; 3,675 kilometres of airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys; surface geochemistry surveys of >10,500 soil and >5,000 rock samples and induced polarisation resistivity geophysics.

Despite the extensive previous exploration work, Far East Gold considers the Trenggalek tenement to be underexplored with significant gold and copper resource potential and has identified several priority drill-ready targets to advance to initial resource delineation.

Far East Gold will be holding an investor briefing next Thursday, 13th July at 1pm (AEST) to discuss progress at Trenggalek and provide a broader company update. Register for the briefing or request a recording here.

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