REG - Panthera Resources - Maiden JORC Resource Estimate for Kalaka Project

Panthera ResourcesAnnouncement

04/02/2025 07:15

For best results when printing this announcement, please click on link below:
https://newsfile.refinitiv.com/getnewsfile/v1/story?guid=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20250204:nRSD8180Va&default-theme=true

RNS Number : 8180V  Panthera Resources PLC  04 February 2025

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to
constitute inside information as stipulated under the UK Market Abuse
Regulation

 

4 February 2025

 

Panthera Resources Plc

("Panthera" or "the Company")

 

Maiden JORC Mineral Resource Estimate for the Kalaka Project

 

Gold exploration and development company Panthera Resources Plc (AIM:PAT),
with gold assets in West Africa and India, is pleased to announce the maiden
JORC compliant Mineral Resource Estimate ("MRE") for the K1A deposit at the
Kalaka project located in Mali (the "Kalaka Project").

 

Highlights

·        Maiden Statement of Mineral Resource Estimate (JORC 2012) for
gold at the K1A deposit in the Kalaka Project

·        Inferred MRE of 49.9 million tonnes at a grade of 0.50 g/t Au
for 803,000 ounces of gold (0.3 g/t Au cut-off)

 

Statement of Kalaka K1A Deposit Mineral Resources

 Category  Domain                  Tonnage  Au
           Mt                               g/t   Koz
 Inferred  Oxide and transitional  6.8      0.50  109
           Sulphide                43.1     0.50  693
 Total                             49.9     0.50  803
 Notes:
 ·      The Mineral Resources are reported in accordance with the JORC
 code, 2012 Edition

 ·      Mineral Resources stated using a cut-off of 0.3 g/t Au

 ·      Mineral Resources have not been constrained within an Economical
 Pit Shell

 ·      Figures have been rounded to the appropriate level of precision
 for the reporting Mineral Resources

 ·      Due to rounding, some columns or rows may not compute exactly as
 shown

Mark Bolton, Managing Director of Panthera, commented:

 

"The 2024 drilling programme at the Kalaka Project has added substantial value
to the Company's West African gold portfolio leveraging shareholders exposure
to record gold prices.

 

The maiden MRE of 803,000 ounces at K1A deposit exhibits good continuity, is
near surface and approximately 180 metres wide. Furthermore, preliminary
metallurgical testing in 2024 delivered excellent results for both the oxide
and sulphide ores.

 

The Kalaka Project holds the potential for a large-scale, low-grade gold
development either by conventional CIL mill or heap leach processing.
Further drilling to the north-east of the K1A deposit MRE has the potential to
deliver a multi-million-ounce deposit with the K1A deposit being only one of
eleven priority exploration prospects within the Kalaka Project licence."

 

 

 

Background

 

The Company has assembled an extensive and diverse portfolio of gold projects
in West Africa (Figure 1), a region that is now the largest gold producing
region globally.  In Mali, the Company operates the Kalaka and the Bassala
projects.

 

The project is located in southeast Mali, between Morila and Syama gold mines
and is approximately 260 km southeast of Bamako. It lies approximately 80 km
south of the Morila gold mine (8m oz) and 85 km northwest of Resolute's Syama
gold mine (6m oz) and is situated adjacent and to the east of the regional
Banifin Shear Zone.

 

Figure 1: West Africa Regional Geology Plan showing Panthera Project Areas

 

The primary mineralisation at the K1A deposit, is associated with an intrusive
tonalite / micro granodiorite in contact with altered metasediments.  The
alteration envelope is dominantly characterized by silica-feldspar flooding
and sulphide mineralisation.

 

Mineral Resources Estimate

 

A considerable gold system has been identified at the K1A deposit at the
Kalaka Project and this announcement reports on the publication of the maiden
MRE (JORC 2012).

 

Following a recent review of all information on Kalaka Project, the Company
commissioned its consultants Dr Schadrac Ibrango and Ian S Cooper who both
qualify as Competent Persons as defined in the 2012 Edition of the
"Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and
Ore Reserves" (the "JORC Code" or "JORC") to complete an estimate of mineral
resources at the K1A deposit. Dr Schadrac Ibrango is the Company's Consulting
Geologist Manager for Burkina Faso and Ian S Cooper is the Company's
Consultant for West Africa.

 

This report stems from a review of the Company's results from recent test work
on drill samples that provided encouragement that this low grade, large gold
system might respond well to conventional extraction technologies.  This step
of reporting a maiden MRE and especially in the formal reporting of upside
potential as exploration targets, is expected to allow the Company to consider
various options for future work, including additional metallurgical testing to
confirm the Kalaka Project's possible commercial viability in a high gold
price environment.

 

The Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) as reported in the table below
has been reported at a 0.3 g/t Au cut-off:

 

Statement of Kalaka K1A Deposit Mineral Resources

 Category  Domain                  Tonnage  Au
           Mt                               g/t   Koz
 Inferred  Oxide and transitional  6.8      0.50  109
           Sulphide                43.1     0.50  693
 Total                             49.9     0.50  803
 Notes:
 ·      The Mineral Resources are reported in accordance with the JORC
 code, 2012 Edition

 ·      Mineral Resources stated using a cut-off of 0.3 g/t Au

 ·      Mineral Resources have not been constrained within an Economical
 Pit Shell

 ·      Figures have been rounded to the appropriate level of precision
 for the reporting Mineral Resources

 ·      Due to rounding, some columns or rows may not compute exactly as
 shown

 

The MRE has been constrained to maximum depths varying between 150 m and 290 m
below surface and widths between 100 m and 180 m depending on the location on
the wireframe defined to constrain the estimates (Figures 2 and 3). The MRE
has not been constrained within an Economical Pit Shell at this stage of the
project development.

 

The resource has been defined using circa 47 reverse circulation and 21
diamond drill holes, in addition preliminary metallurgical testing has also
been completed supporting the potential economic viability of the deposit.

 

The full unedited JORC compliant Mineral Resource Estimate document titled
"Resource Estimate for the K1A Deposit, Kalaka Project, Mali" is available for
viewing at:

 

http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/8180V_1-2025-2-4.pdf
(http://www.rns-pdf.londonstockexchange.com/rns/8180V_1-2025-2-4.pdf)

 

 

Commentary

 

The maiden MRE extends approximately 1.0 km along strike with a width of 180 m
at the surface and 160 m at base of the resource envelope (Figures 2 and 3).

 

These ore body dimensions at the cut-off grade at which the resources are
reported reflects an intended bulk-mining approach and a CIL plant. The use of
a 0.10 g/t cut-off, given the very high current gold price, would deliver
about 1 million ounces and this may be an option if a Heap Leach approach is
considered for treatment (Graph 1 below).

 

Open pit bulk mining offers several significant advantages in material
transport and processing, reducing labour costs and time required for
operations. This leads to lower operating costs and increased profitability
while the cost-effectiveness of open pit mining allows for the economic
extraction of lower grade ores such as at the K1A deposit.

 

Figure 2: Plan view of wireframe modelled to constraint the Kalaka Project MRE
with the location of section in Figure 3 shown in red

 

 

Figure 3: Typical Sectional View with block grades

 

Graph 1: Grade/Ounces Curve using different Cut-offs Parameters

 

Metallurgy

 

Metallurgical testing completed by the Company included Leachwell testing and
Bottle Roll Metallurgical testing to determine if the ore was amenable to
conventional cyanide (CN) metallurgical processing methods.  These initial
tests confirmed that the Kalaka Project ore is non-refractory and amenable to
simple cyanide leaching with likely good recoveries.

 

The Leachwell test work results announced on 6 February 2024 indicated that CN
extractable gold for the near surface oxide samples reported on average 87%
recovery, transitional zone samples reported on average 90% recovery and
unoxidized, sulphide-bearing samples reported on average 89%.

 

The Bottle Roll Metallurgical testing of drill core samples announced on 13
June 2024, showed recoveries between 67% and 88%, a positive result for the
coarse size tested (minus 10mm).  All samples tested showed relatively fast
cyanide leaching with most gold extracted within 12 hours of leaching.

 

Further steps in a future metallurgical work programme would include
larger-scale leaching to test if this mineralisation might be able to be
processed using the cheaper heap leach approach.  If this were to prove
positive, the potential for future development of the Kalaka Project and any
further similar and adjacent discoveries, would be enhanced.

 

 

Exploration Potential

 

K1A deposit

 

In addition to the mineralisation as defined in the MRE at the K1A deposit,
the Company completed a review of exploration data including the historical
drilling data at the Kalaka Project.  Importantly, the Company is yet to
drill the northern extension of the mineralisation at the K1A deposit as
interpreted from its geophysical and soil geochemical surveys (Figures 4 and
5). For the northern extension of the K1A deposit geophysical anomaly the soil
geochemistry that initially identified the K1A deposit, is masked by the flood
plain sediments of a drainage system. This exploration target together with
several similar targets in the Kalaka Project area (Figure 6) taken together
would potentially expand the exploration target to a range of approximately 3
to 5 Moz of gold.

 

Figure 4: K1A deposit with northern and eastern exploration targets
highlighted by background image of IP chargeability anomaly with gold in soil
geochemistry.

 

 

Figure 5: K1A deposit with northern and eastern exploration targets
highlighted by background image of airborne Electro Magnetic (EM) survey image
showing the Channel 34 anomaly with gold in soil geochemistry.

 

Regional Exploration Potential

 

Several regional exploration programmes including geophysics and geochemical
techniques have identified eleven priority exploration prospects (Figure 6)
and in particular, the K1B, K1C and the Southern Artisanal Prospects.

 

Figure 6: Exploration targets in the Kalaka Project tenement area

 

On the eastern side of the Kalaka Project in the K1B prospect, highlighted by
soil geochemistry, sporadic but high gold assays were returned in the rotary
air blast drilling and follow up reverse circulation drilling over a strike
length of at least 2 km and occurring on a structural discontinuity between
conductive and resistive geophysical domains. The eastern most drill hole at
the Kalaka Project, air core hole K1BAC001 ended in mineralisation with a
metre at 17.7 g/t Au (the bottom 22 metres of the hole was anomalous in gold
with values ranging from 0.92 g/t Au to 0.1 g/t Au).

 

The K1C prospect was identified from soil geochemistry and is located at the
southern end of an IP chargeability response. Like the northern extension of
the K1A geophysical anomaly (Figure 4) the soil geochemistry at K1C is masked
by the flood plain sediments of a drainage system. Three RC drill holes on the
southern section (only two sections were drilled) returned significant
intersections. K1RC7 intersected 11m at 0.89 g/t Au within a lower grade
intersection of 33 metres length. A near surface intersection of 11 metres in
hole K1RC8 returned 0.59 g/t Au (hole K1RC8A was abandoned at shallow depth
but was anomalous in the top 6 metres).  A diamond drill hole, K1CD002,
located 220 metres northeast of the RC hole reported three intersections of
8m, 12m and 3m with gold values in the range 0.1 g/t to 3.0 g/t.

 

At the southern Artisanal workings prospect, inspection in the field shows
that the earlier AC drilling did not test the prospect, those holes were on 50
m centres so only provides spot wide spaced data, with the holes drilled to a
maximum depth of 5 to 10 m, straight into hard rock (drill refusal) so the
main working trends (Panthera have mapped the workings in detail) were not
tested.

 

Panthera Resources PLC

Mark Bolton (Managing
Director)
+61 411 220 942

 
contact@pantheraresources.com

 

Allenby Capital Limited (Nominated Adviser & Joint
Broker)             +44 (0) 20 3328 5656

John Depasquale / Vivek Bhardwaj (Corporate
Finance)

Guy McDougall / Kelly Gardiner

 

VSA Capital Limited (Joint
Broker)
+44 (0) 20 3005 5000

Andrew Monk / Andrew Raca

 

Novum Securities Limited (Joint
Broker)
+44 (0) 20 7399 9400

Colin
Rowbury

 

Subscribe for Regular Updates

 

Follow the Company on Twitter at @PantheraPLC

 

For more information and to subscribe to updates visit: pantheraresources.com

 

Qualified Persons

The technical information contained in this disclosure has been read and
approved by Ian S Cooper (BSc, ARSM, FAusIMM, FGS), who is a qualified
geologist and acts as the Qualified Person under the AIM Rules - Note for
Mining and Oil & Gas Companies.  Mr Cooper is a geological consultant to
Panthera Resources PLC.

 

The technical information contained in this disclosure has been read and
approved by Dr Schadrac Ibrango who is a Member of the Ordre des Geologues du
Quebec (OGQ - Canada) and of the Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of
Newfound Lands and Labrador (PEGNL - Canada), is a qualified geologist and
acts as the Qualified Person under the AIM Rules - Note for Mining and Oil
& Gas Companies.  Dr Schadrac Ibrango is a geological consultant to
Panthera Resources PLC.

 

Glossary

 

 Au:                    The chemical element for Gold

 Bottle Roll:           Metallurgical test providing an initial evaluation of ore leachability

 CIL:                   Carbon in Leach is a metallurgical process for extracting gold from ore

                      through the dissolution of gold particles into a cyanide solution and their
                        subsequent adsorption onto activated carbon
 Mill:                  Ore processing facility used in the mining industry to extract valuable
                        products from ore

 Diamond Core           Diamond core drilling uses a diamond cutting bit, which rotates at the end of

Drilling:             a steel rod (tube) allowing for a solid column of rock to be recovered from

                      the tube at the surface

 Economic Pit Shell:    Constraining the calculated mineral resource estimate within a commercially

                      viable open pit

 g/t:                   Grammes per Tonne (Metric)

 Heap Leach:            Metallurgical process where ore is placed in a heap and sprayed with a
                        chemical solution to extract the desired metals

 IP:                    Induced polarization (IP) is a geophysical imaging technique used to identify
                        the electrical chargeability of subsurface materials

 JORC or JORC Code:     Australasian Code for Reporting of Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves' of
                        December 2012 ("JORC Code") as prepared by the Joint Ore Reserves Committee of
                        the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Terms including Measured,
                        Indicated and Inferred Resources as defined therein

 Km:                    Kilometre (Metric)

 Koz:                   Thousand ounces (Troy)

 Leachwell:             A proprietary reagent for cyanide leach gold assaying allowing for large

                      sample testing

 M:                     Metres (Metric)

 Moz:                   Million Ounces (Troy)

 Mt:                    Million Tonnes (Metric)

 Oz:                    Ounces (Troy)

 NSR:                   Net Smelter Return (NSR) is the net revenue that the owner of a mining
                        property receives from the sale of the mine's metal products less
                        transportation and refining costs

 RC:                    Reverse Circulation drilling, or RC drilling, uses rods with inner and outer
                        tubes, the drill cuttings are returned to surface inside the rods. The
                        drilling mechanism is a pneumatic reciprocating piston known as a hammer
                        driving a tungsten-steel drill bit

 

 

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements that are based on the
Company's current expectations and estimates. Forward-looking statements are
frequently characterised by words such as "plan", "expect", "project",
"intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "suggest", "indicate" and other
similar words or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will"
occur. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks,
uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to
differ materially from estimated or anticipated events or results implied or
expressed in such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among
others: the actual results of current exploration activities; conclusions of
economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be
refined; possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates; accidents, labour
disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining
governmental approvals or financing; and fluctuations in metal prices. There
may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as
anticipated, estimated or intended. Any forward-looking statement speaks only
as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by
applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to
update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information,
future events or results or otherwise. Forward-looking statements are not
guarantees of future performance and accordingly, undue reliance should not be
put on such statements due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

 

 

**ENDS**

 

This information is provided by RNS, the news service of the London Stock Exchange. RNS is approved by the Financial Conduct Authority to act as a Primary Information Provider in the United Kingdom. Terms and conditions relating to the use and distribution of this information may apply. For further information, please contact
rns@lseg.com (mailto:rns@lseg.com)
 or visit
www.rns.com (http://www.rns.com/)
.

RNS may use your IP address to confirm compliance with the terms and conditions, to analyse how you engage with the information contained in this communication, and to share such analysis on an anonymised basis with others as part of our commercial services. For further information about how RNS and the London Stock Exchange use the personal data you provide us, please see our
Privacy Policy (https://www.lseg.com/privacy-and-cookie-policy)
.   END  DRLFZGGZDDGGKZG