Panther Metals PLC (LSE:PALM) said the first half of 2022 was “an exciting time” as the mining and exploration company reported interim results.
The group booked a loss of just under £175,000 in the six months to June 2022 and closed out the period with £71,000 in cash. It subsequently raised £1.1mln in early August.
“The first half of 2022 has been an exciting time for Panther,” said chairman Nicholas O'Reilly.
“Following the work and travel restrictions in Canada and Australia imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic a busy last half of 2021 with two drill programmes and the initial public offering on the ASX of Panther's Australian interests culminated in a great start to 2022. With assay results coming in from the two Canadian diamond drilling programmes at the Wishbone prospect on the Obonga project and Dotted Lake property in early January 2022, the year started with much data analysis and interpretation work.”
These results in question confirmed the discovery of a volcanogenic massive sulphide mineral system at Wishbone.
Also at Obonga in March planning work for drilling the Awkward nickel intrusive conduit prospect to the east of Wishbone led to the acquisition of the claims covering the eastward anomaly.
“With five prospects now permitted for drilling at Obonga Panther is confident of exciting times ahead,” said O’Reilly.
“Like Wishbone, the drill core assay results from Dotted Lake also proved a significant development for Panther. The initial objective of the drilling the single 402 metre deep diamond drill hole was to understand the stratigraphy linked to the airborne geophysics survey and trench sample anomalies. With the core assay results delineating a total five gold intersections above one gram per tonne gold and gold mineralisation widely dispersed between 47 metres and 391 metres, this hole is considered very encouraging for follow-up investigation especially given the structural setting and highly anomalous soil survey results immediately along strike.”
Meanwhile, on 7 April the company announced the signing of a sale agreement for the transfer of the Big Bear project to Fulcrum Metals Ltd which is seeking a listing on London's AIM Market.
Upon successful listing this deal should see Panther hold a 20% share in Fulcrum together with cash and a royalty and will give Panther exposure to a further six gold exploration properties and two uranium exploration projects.
In a balancing transaction, Panther entered into an option and sale and purchase agreement with Shear Gold Exploration Corporation to purchase a substantial claim holding comprising the Manitou Lakes project upon the Eagle-Manitou Lakes greenstone belt in the gold-endowed Kenora Mining District, approximately 300 kilometres east of Thunder Bay in Ontario. This underexplored region contains a number of historic gold mines and has been yielding significant discoveries for neighbouring explorers.
“In Australia, the successful listing of Panther Metals Limited on the ASX in December 2021, allowed the planned 6,000 metre reverse circulation drilling programme to commence at the Coglia nickel-cobalt project in Western Australia,” said O’Reilly.
“Assay results received from the 61 holes through February, March and May culminated in Panther Australia publishing a resource of 70.6mln tonnes at 0.7% nickel and 460parts per million cobalt.”
Drilling in Australia also targeted gold with programmes Eight Foot Well gold prospect and the Burtville East gold prospect competed to plan during the period. Panther maintains a 36.61% holding in Panther Australia.