Pantoro Gold Ltd (ASX:PNR, OTC:PNTOF) earlier this week reported visible and high-grade gold intercepts at its Norseman Gold Project in Western Australia, including a standout result of 2.4 metres at 43.19 grams per tonne.
The company said drilling at the Crown Reef had returned consistent high-grade gold across multiple holes. It noted that this area had not been mined since the 1970s and is now forming part of a growing zone of mineralisation. The company said the Crown Reef was historically known for visible gold, and it was pleased to see that characteristic continue.
Drilling also intersected the O'Brien’s Reef, which currently hosts a resource of 130,000 tonnes at 9.7 grams per tonne of gold. Pantoro said step-out drilling beyond the existing boundaries suggested the potential for a “fairly large increase” to the resource size. The company explained that future development into Crown and O’Brien’s Reefs would offer two independent mining areas and support flexibility in operations.
Pantoro told investors that seven drill rigs are currently active across the project, including four underground rigs. A fifth underground rig is expected to arrive in the March quarter. The company said it is focused on ramping up underground development as part of a broader plan to replace lower-grade open-pit feed.
The company has also commenced drilling at North Royal, approximately eight kilometres north of the processing facility. It said the site historically produced 1.80 million ounces of gold at grades between seven and eight grams per tonne. Early drilling results from the area were described as “promising”.
Pantoro said activity continues at the Scotia and OK targets, which also continue to return encouraging results. The company highlighted that it remains focused on achieving a production target of 200,000 ounces per annum by financial year 2028.
Updates on drilling activity across all sites are expected in the near term.
Proactive:
Pantera Gold has intercepted high grade and visible gold at the Norseman gold project in Western Australia. Joining me to give us the full rundown on this is the company's Managing Director, Paul Cmrlec. Paul, it's good to have you back on Proactive. How are you?
Paul Cmrlec:
So well, thanks — and good to see you again too.
Proactive:
It's great to have you back on here, Paul, to share some great news with investors. We're talking 2.4 metres at 43.19 grams per tonne of gold amongst the top highlights. Your share price is up nearly 6% at the time of this recording. Investors seem to be quite happy. What more can you report back to us from those results?
Paul Cmrlec:
Yeah, and as you can see from the photos in the release this morning, we've got lots of visible gold — what the Crown Reef was famous for historically. We're drilling in an area that's had a really small amount of mining previously and really targeting our first access point back into the Crown Reef. That'll be the first mining there since the 1970s.
Getting a fairly large area together now with this high-grade visible gold consistently coming back in a large number of the holes is exactly what we're looking for when we started the program.
Proactive:
An important thing we noticed, Paul, is that drilling also intersected the O'Brien’s Reef — already hosting a mineral resource of 130,000 tonnes at 9.7 grams per tonne of gold. First and foremost, how will that extend the mineralisation at O'Brien’s Reef? And perhaps for shareholders or potential investors who don't know — what is the importance of the O'Brien’s Reef?
Paul Cmrlec:
Sure. From the old drawings, there are lots of different ore bodies down in the mine field, but O'Brien’s and the Crown Reef are quite close together. Before the mine closed in its previous iteration, the development actually got to within 80 metres of the O'Brien’s Reef. Economic circumstances forced them to stop before they got there.
It was a relatively small area that they had covered with drilling to get that initial 130,000 tonnes. The drilling that we're undertaking now, as you can see from the diagrams again, is quite a large step-out on the currently existing resource. So, when we get enough drilling density into those areas, we expect to see a fairly large increase in the size of that resource.
What it means is that when we go ahead to develop into both O'Brien’s and the Crown Reef, we’re going to have two independent mining areas to get up and operating at the same time. So from a flexibility point of view in maximising production when that mine’s up and running, having both of those ore bodies there — and producing some really spectacular results — is really exciting for us.
Proactive:
You were telling me that there's going to be quite a few busy months ahead at Norseman. What's the outlook in terms of drilling over the next few months?
Paul Cmrlec:
Yeah, we’ve currently got four underground drill rigs and three surface drill rigs on site at Norseman. Currently, two of those rigs are underground at the Bullen mine. We expect during the March quarter to have a third rig coming on — so four underground rigs altogether.
There’s going to be a lot of focus on the Crown Reef and O'Brien’s Reef, really looking to get underground mining started there as soon as we possibly can for that third underground production source. You’ll remember that our strategy is really about bringing on additional underground feed to replace the lower-grade open pit feed — and this is a great stride towards that. So that drilling is going to continue as rapidly as we possibly can.
At the same time, we have started drilling another large historical production centre called North Royal, approximately eight kilometres north of the processing plant. That mine historically produced 1.8 million ounces of gold at seven to eight grams per tonne. We’ve just completed the first drill holes into that area, and that’s looking promising as well.
So there’s going to be a huge amount of activity — both from surface and from underground — looking at bringing those new underground mines on over the next couple of years, and achieve our goal of getting to that 200,000 ounce target by FY28.
At the same time, we've got a drill rig down at Scotia, and we have one at OK as well. Both of those areas continue to produce good results. I think you're going to see more drilling updates in the not-too-distant future from those areas, as well as these exploration areas, which I think will just turn into a long life of high-grade underground feed.
Proactive:
Quite a fair bit for investors to look forward to — not only in the short term at Norseman, but also in the next few months and potential couple of years. As you mentioned, Paul, it's been great having you back on here. This was Pantoro Gold's Managing Director, Paul Cmrlec. Thank you so much.
Paul Cmrlec:
Thanks again for your time.