Junior explorer Prodigy Gold has brought in the ASX’s largest gold producer to help advance its Euro project in the Northern Territory.

Prodigy (ASX:PRX) has inked a deal that gives Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM) the right to earn up to a 75 per cent stake in the project by funding exploration up to $12 million over seven years.

The Euro project area covers about 3478 square kilometres of exploration licences and applications in the Tanami Region of the Northern Territory.

The project lies along strike of the Trans-Tanami Trend, which is the regional control of major gold deposits in the area – including Newmont Mining’s Callie mine.

Prodigy was previously known as ABM before it rebranded in May. Along with the new name came a new strategy.

“A big part of the change in strategy that we’ve had is ABM went pretty rapidly into the mining of Old Pirate on inferred resources and a scoping study and I see the potential for Callie-style discoveries out there,” boss Matt Briggs told Stockhead.

“So we’ve refocused on exploration and new discoveries.

“ABM previously was spending about $2 million a year on exploration and I see partnering with other companies, we’re better off owning 30 per cent of a discovery through a joint venture than holding the ground with no exploration spend going in.”

Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX) shares over the past 12 months.
Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX) shares over the past 12 months.

Prodigy has also partnered with Independence Group (ASX:IGO) on the Lake Mackay project and Gladiator Resources (ASX:GLA) on the North Arunta project.

“Just holding the ground doesn’t do anything for our shareholders, we’ve got to make that discovery,” Mr Briggs said.

“We’ll continue to do partnerships on those patches of ground that we probably wouldn’t get to for the next three to four years.”

Newcrest and Prodigy plan to begin exploration in the third quarter, starting with the Dune target that lies 2km from Newmont’s Oberon deposit.

Prodigy shares were down 3.2 per cent at 9c on Wednesday morning.

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