Panther Metals (PALM) unveiled a half-year report. The company said that towards the end of the period it completed its first JORC Exploration Target of 30Mt-50Mt at 0.6-0.8% nickel and 400-600ppm cobalt on the Coglia deposit, which occurs at the far southern end of the Merolia Project.
This identified a stand-out opportunity for the Company in a set of commodities that are receiving increased attention for their use in battery technologies. While the mineralisation identified to date has been determined as lateritic, there is evidence for sulphide mineralisation contained within the underlying ultramafic volcanic rocks, which are yet to be tested systematically.
Operational Highlights
Key operational milestones achieved during the six-month period to 30 June 2021.
Canada
· On 22 February 2021, Panther Metals PLC (“Panther” or “the Company”) received the Dotted Lake property airborne geophysics survey data and report. A total of 138 geophysical anomalies were identified by the survey, with high priority anomalies since prioritised for follow-up ground investigation.
· On 4 May 2021, Panther announced the issue of the Dotted Lake Exploration Permit which allowed Panther Metals (Canada) Limited (“Panther Canada”) to embark on plans for reconnaissance diamond drilling, grid soil sampling, ground geophysics and trenching focussed on testing intrusive contact shear-zone hosted gold mineralisation in the vicinity of the north shore of Dotted Lake. Two new exploration permit applications were also lodged for the Big Bear Project, Big Duck Creek and Hays Lake East, target areas.
· At the Dotted Lake property, the planned soil sampling programme commenced in mid-June and Panther Canada contracted a local firm to construct the Dotted Lake drill rig access trail.
Australia
· Panther Metals Limited (formerly known as Panther Metals Pty Ltd) (“Panther Australia”) completed a soil geochemical sampling programme at the Merolia Gold Project using Kalgoorlie based drilling and survey company Gyro Australia Pty Ltd. An airborne magnetic and radiometric survey was completed across the Merolia Project and at the Annaburroo and Marrakai projects in the Northern Territory.
· In February 2021, Panther Australia appointed Mr. Ranko Matic and Mr. Daniel Tuffin to its board in Australia and converted the company to a UPC called Panther Metals Limited.
· On 15 April 2021, the Company announced its intention to pursue a listing of its Australian assets on the Australian Securities Exchange with a pre-IPO seed funding round. The Company will continue to hold a material position in Panther Australia upon the listing.
· On 10 May 2021 the Company announced the completion of the first stage in the process to pursue a listing of its Australian assets on the Australian Securities Exchange (the “ASX” or “ASX Exchange”) with the completion of a pre-IPO seed financing raising AUD$300,000. As a result of the financing, the interest of Panther in its subsidiary, Panther Australia, reduced from 100% to 89.3%.
Corporate and Financial Highlights
· On 21 April 2021, the Company announced the completion of a private placing for a total of 1,666,666 ordinary shares at a price of 12p raising a total of £200,000. The admission of those shares took place on 23 April 2021.
· On 17 May 2021, the Company announced that it has received notice of exercise of a total of 1,318,331 warrants with an exercise price of 6p per share, raising £79,100 for the Company. The admission of those shares took place on 20 May 2021.
Dr Kerim Sener, Chairman, commented:
The first half of 2021 commenced with certain strategic developments associated with the advancement of our Australian portfolio. During the latter part of the previous year, we concluded a transaction on the Merolia Project near Laverton in Western Australia. Recognising the significance of this asset and the enhanced requirements for project development, we quickly made steps towards giving Panther Australia a life of its own. This involved enhancing the board with two additional minerals industry professionals and immediately commencing fieldwork across the project area. The latter activity involved an extensive auger geochemistry programme over a previously unsampled part of the Merolia Project, the result of which was the discovery of the 40 Mile Camp gold anomaly. In addition, an airborne magnetic and radiometric geophysical survey was conducted across the whole project area; the aircraft and survey crew then being sent to the Northern Territory to complete an airborne survey over those assets as well. This set the scene for a successful placing undertaken in late April for £200,000 at a price of 12p per share and representing a 20% premium over a previous fundraise in late 2020.
In Canada, early in the year, the Company received the processed data products from its airborne magnetic and electromagnetic geophysical survey over the Dotted Lake Project, which had been undertaken at the very end of 2020. A large number of geophysical anomalies were identified in this survey, several of which were prioritised for follow-up work. A subsequent soil geochemical programme was undertaken across the project to help refine targets identified from the airborne survey. Further planning was undertaken for additional work across both the Big Bear and Dotted Lake projects, pending permits and land access requirements.
Returning to Australia, a decision was made to advance our subsidiary, which had recently been renamed Panther Metals Limited, towards a listing on the ASX. A fundraise was completed for the subsidiary to this end for A$300,000 to help advance additional exploration and corporate development costs, which had the effect of diluting the interests of the Company to about 89%. As part of these developments, further tenement applications were made to the west of the Merolia Project, in an area known as Red Flag, which hosts potential for nickel-cobalt and gold mineralisation.
Towards the end of the period, the Company completed its first JORC Exploration Target of 30Mt-50Mt at 0.6-0.8% nickel and 400-600ppm cobalt on the Coglia deposit, which occurs at the far southern end of the Merolia Project. This identified a stand-out opportunity for the Company in a set of commodities which are receiving increased attention for their use in battery technologies. While the mineralisation identified to date has been determined as lateritic, there is evidence for sulphide mineralisation contained within the underlying ultramafic volcanic rocks, which are yet to be tested systematically.
Consequently, the activities of the Company during the period have been tremendous and we would like to congratulate our teams both in Australia and in Canada for their drive and determination. While travel remains impacted by the ongoing issues associated with COVID-19, we have taken steps to advance the interests of the Company across both Australia and Canada by utilising wholly in-country teams. This will remain a core feature of our overall strategy going forward, as will the concept of spinning-out parts of our project portfolio into country or project specific entities.
Operational Review
Canada
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions on travel into Ontario continued to impact on exploration staffing, permitting and logistics across the sector. However, with a growing local network of contractors, Panther was able to progress work across the Canadian projects.
On 22 February 2021 Panther Canada announced the receipt of the processed high-resolution Airborne Time Domain Electromagnetic (“TDEM”) and Magnetics (“Mag”) geophysics survey data and associated maps and report over the Dotted Lake Property on the north limb of the Schreiber-Hemlo greenstone belt in Ontario, Canada. Prospectair Geosurveys, the same company who flew the Big Bear property in June 2020, had conducted the helicopter 818 line-km survey over a series of seven flights between 9th -11th December 2020. A total of 138 geophysical anomalies were identified by the survey, with high priority anomalies since prioritised for follow-up ground investigation.
In early May, the Company received the Dotted Lake Exploration Permit (number PR-20-000376) which has allowed the Company to embark on plans for reconnaissance diamond drilling, grid soil sampling, ground induced polarisation (“IP”) geophysics and trenching focussed on testing intrusive contact shear-zone hosted gold mineralisation in the vicinity of the north shore of Dotted Lake. Panther’s reconnaissance sampling in historical trenches at this locality has confirmed high-grade gold at surface (announced 5 November 2020) in an area that has never been drill-tested.
The Dotted Lake Exploration Permit allows the below permitted activities to be undertaken over a three-year period between 27 April 2021 and 26 April 2024 on Dotted Lake claim numbers 548354, 548355, 548356, 548357 and 548358, it replaces previous (2018) Dotted Lake Exploration Permit (PR-18-000152) considering the current claim focus and revised drilling plans. Permitted activities consist of:
§ Mechanised drilling. Provision for an initial 8 planned diamond drill collars to step-out along strike of any positive drill intersections.
§ Mechanised stripping. Allowance for a total 2,500m2 of ground cover stripping to facilitate bedrock mapping and structural interpretation.
§ Pitting and trenching. Covers 7 planned trenches to provide strike cross-sections across the target shear zone.
§ Ground geophysics incorporating the use of a generator. Planned work includes an initial 2.5-line km of ground IP survey across the sheared contact.
§ Construction of access roads and survey line cutting.
§ Permitted fuel storage for drill rig, vehicles, and generators.
At the Big Bear Project, also in May 2021, Panther Canada submitted a further two Exploration Permit Applications which will facilitate reconnaissance drill testing and ground IP geophysics across key prospective targets which have emerged from the results of the airborne TDEM and Mag geophysics survey completed in August 2020 and the Autumn 2020 fieldwork programme.
The Big Duck Creek Permit Application will allow testing of high priority AEM and Mag targets in the ‘Big Duck Creek’ area to the north and west of Little Bear Lake, in the north of the project area. The requested activities consist:
§ Mechanised drilling. Provision for up to 10 planned priority 1 diamond drill collars with a further proposed 9 drill pad locations preplanned to follow-up on encouraging results.
§ Ground geophysics incorporating the use of a generator. Planned work includes an initial 5-line km of IP survey arranged over 9 planned survey lines.
§ Construction of access roads and survey line cutting.
§ Permitted fuel storage for drill rig, vehicles and generators and construction of a temporary personnel camp.
The Hays Lake East Permit Application area overlies the interpreted northern intrusive contact of the Terrace Bay Batholith, targeting the Joa-Walton gold occurrence and potential eastern extensions to the historical Jedder gold mine. This application focusses on claims Panther acquired last year (announced 13 July 2020) which includes the Jedder mine and mill, which was intermittently worked between 1934-1986, with gold bearing quartz veins by open cuts up to 15m deep site. Historical gold production was not reported but channel sampling of an 87m long section of the Mill Vein in 1984 reportedly yielded values up to 39.50g/t Au & 73.17 g/t Ag over 0.5m.
The Joa-Walton occurrence includes at least three quartz veins (with government assays up to 210g/t Au & 258g/t Ag) which Panther intends to test through three-dimensional geophysical modelling and drilling.
Requested activities in the Hays Lake East Permit Application consist of:
§ Mechanised drilling. Provision for up to 5 planned priority 1 diamond drill collars with a further proposed 4 drill pad locations pre-planned to follow-up on encouraging results.
§ Ground geophysics incorporating the use of a generator. Planned work includes an initial 2.5-line km of IP survey arranged over 5 planned survey lines.
§ Construction of access roads and survey line cutting.
§ Permitted fuel storage for drill rig, vehicles and generators and construction of a temporary personnel camp.
In June 2021, Panther Canada contracted the experienced Thunder Bay based Fladgate Exploration Consulting Corporation (“Fladgate”) to commence a soil geochemistry sampling programme over a 1.60km by 0.85km target area coinciding with the Dotted Lake Exploration Permit area.
The soil geochemistry survey is designed to build out and in-fill the westerly strike extensions of high-grade gold mineralisation intersected by historical trenching undertaken by a previous licence holder in 2010 (Tr-10-4) and as confirmed during Panther Canada’s reconnaissance sampling (gold up to 18.9g/t Au) announced 5 November 2020. The soil survey will also provide important geochemical coverage of target structures outlined by Panther’s airborne geophysical survey. At the same time a separate contract was agreed for the construction of the Dotted Lake drill rig access trail.
Post period end, over the period mid-July to mid-August, the regional government issued a forest fire risk related work-stop safety implementation order, following a long period of hot dry weather. With many uncontrolled forest fires burning throughout the district exploration work must be put on hold, impacting the Dotted Lake drilling access trail construction, and delaying the completion of the soil programme until the end of August.
Also post period end, on 2 August 2021, as detailed in the Outlook section below, Panther announced the acquisition of 1,128 claims, constituting the new Obonga Project.
The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to impact on the Canadian exploration sector and in line with other claim holders in Ontario Panther Canada has been granted and taken the option to apply for 12-month extensions to claim expiry dates. The scheme is now expected to come to an end on 31st October 2021.
Australia
A 5,867 line-km airborne geophysical survey was undertaken over the Merolia Project in Western Australia by Thomson Airborne Pty Ltd. The high-resolution survey involved the collection of magnetic, radiometric and elevation data on a 50m line spacing and at a nominal flight altitude of 35m above ground, utilised a conventional fixed-wing platform. This survey was followed by the collection of 1,715 line-km airborne geophysical data over the Annaburroo and Marrakai gold project areas in the Northern Territory using the same survey parameters as used in Western Australia. Geophysical consultants, Core Geophysics, subsequently undertook the raw data processing and stitched the resultant outputs with other regional datasets. The full suite of derivative geophysical data products is being utilised to guide the exploration targeting process.
An extensive auger drill geochemistry programme was completed within tenement E38/3384 which forms part of the Merolia Project. This programme, which was undertaken by contractors Gyro Drilling Pty Ltd, covered a large part of the south-eastern extension of the Comet Well Gold trend from which significant gold anomalism in soil was previously identified over at least 2.5km of strike. The Comet Well Trend has also yielded over 40 ounces of gold nuggets by prospectors in recent times yet remains undrilled. All samples were submitted for ionic leach analyses, the results of which helped to define the 40 Mile Camp gold anomaly.
An independent historical data review undertaken by consultants to the Panther Australia considered the results of two historical exploration campaigns at Coglia, at the far southern end of the Merolia Project. Twenty reverse circulation (“RC”) drill holes, totalling 1,562m delineated a horizon of nickel-cobalt laterite mineralisation from approximately 40m below transported alluvial sediments. A more recent programme involving 48 air-core holes totalling 2,866m also intersected a layer of nickel-cobalt enrichment in lateritic material at a depth of between 40m to 70m. Significant drilling intersections in 18 holes from these two drilling programmes define a broadly north-south trending, approximately 5.5km long, zone of nickel and cobalt enriched laterite from which a JORC Exploration Target of 30Mt-50Mt at 0.6-0.8% nickel and 400-600ppm was established. As the underlying geology consists, in part, of ultramafic rocks which show evidence for nickel sulphide mineralisation from two deeper inclined drill holes, there is additional exploration upside which requires further follow-up.
