Panther (ASX:PNT) surpasses 100 million nickel-cobalt tonnes in Laverton
March 5, 2024Panther Metals has marked a 30 per cent increase to its maiden estimate and stamped in a nickel-cobalt resource surpassing 100 million tonnes at its Coglia Nickel-Cobalt Project southeast of Laverton in Western Australia’s Goldfields.
The upgraded resource of 102.8Mt at 0.6 per cent nickel and 370 parts per million cobalt contains 614 kilotonnes of nickel and 37.7kt of cobalt, of which 22% is now indicated.
Panther Metals Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Tuffin said he was thrilled to announce the updated resource which sat in the top 30% of global deposit tonnage, with room for growth and solidified status as a world-class asset.
“Discovered by the company in June 2022, the Coglia Nickel-Cobalt Project lies within the same Tier 1 nickel region as producer Glencore and ASX-listed developer Alliance Nickel Limited, which inked a $15 million offtake agreement with EV car manufacturer Stellantis in mid-2023 and more recently signed an $8 million term sheet with Samsung SDI,” Mr Tuffin said.
“Coglia is the discovery that keeps on giving, expanding with each drill program while consistently offering up new exploration targets to drill. With updated heap-leach results and a scoping study due on the horizon, 2024 continues to look very exciting for Panther Metals.”
Growing Coglia
Panther’s deeper extensional drilling has defined two distinct lithologies within the Coglia resource, a lateritic upper horizon and a deeper weathered ultramafic lower end remaining largely open at depth.
The company has three new extensional exploration targets totalling over four square kilometres open for the drill in the project’s southern end, including an East target remaining largely untested after a first hole found evidence of in situ nickel-sulphide mineralisation.
Nickel watch
A nickel market deflated from a glut of new Indonesian supply could be on the rebound, at least according to Macquarie’s veteran nickel watcher Jim Lennon.
The commodity authority said he and his team discovered steel makers and other nickel alloy users were raising output more than anybody had realised in the west.
It sparked a major change to his supply forecasts, now cut from 100,000 tonnes of surplus to 40,000t, figures he believes could turn into a deficit if Jakarta restricted the number of production licences.
Mr Lennon told Fairfax newspaper the Australian Financial Review a “tightness” had developed in ore supply as new projects were still coming on stream, with the ventures likely to struggle if Indonesian authorities blocked licence growth expansions.
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