Panther hooks ‘bonanza’ grade gold find at Burtville East prospect

Panther Metals continues to deliver just months after making its ASX debut, this time unearthing a ‘bonanza’ gold hit of 478 grams per tonne (g/t) from just 28m at its Western Australian gold project.

Panther Metals (ASX:PNT) has reported an impressive hit of 1m at 478g/t along with visible gold in the current drilling program at its Burtville East prospect.

Part of the highly prospective and underexplored Merolia project in Western Australia, Burtville East is one of several promising prospects that has delivered multiple high grade drill hits.

The latest hole (BVE006) drilled has intersected a new shallow, broad high-grade gold zone and returned a top hit of 15m at 53.94g/t from 27m that included several much higher-grade sections.

These include 1m at 79.90g/t from 27m, 1m at 478g/t from 28m, 1m at 125.50g/t from 34m and 1m at 43.80g/t from 35m.

Visible gold was also panned in hole BVE006. Managing director Daniel Tuffin described the results from this short program of drilling at Burtville East as “simply stunning”.

And he wasn’t wrong, just check out that gold!

Visible panned gold. Source: supplied

Another hole (BVE002) delivered a high-grade intercept of 1m at 73.30g/t from 93m, while a peak grade of 21.70g/t was returned from a grab sample.

“The first round of drilling at the Burtville East project consisted of six reverse circulation (RC) holes for a total 675m drilled and was designed as an initial first pass program to test accepted mineralisation trends and explore the potential for alternative trends,” Tuffin explained.

“Some of the holes drilled into the accepted trend model did not perform as expected, while others, particularly in the case of hole BVE006, intercepted a broad high-grade zone of 15m at 53.94g/t gold. BVE006 was planned to investigate a conceptual, and untested, alternative mineralisation trend theory.

“The interception of a new shallow broad high-grade gold zone in hole BVE006, in conjunction with confirmation that unprocessed local stockpiles contain gold in previously unprocessed ‘mineralised altered zones’, requires a rethink about the accepted mineralisation trends at Burtville East.”

Burtville East is one of four gold prospects at the Merolia gold project, which spans 90km2 of some of the region’s most prospective and underexplored ground.

The prospect area contains historical underground workings, along with mineralised stockpiles of historically rejected material ready for treatment.

Historical grab samples from this altered mineralised zone have returned grades of up to 38.45g/t gold at Burtville East. Historical drill results, meanwhile, included a peak hit of 1m at 110g/t from within a broader intersection of 5m at 23g/t.

Other prospects at the Merolia project include 40 Mile Camp, which hosts a 2.5km x 5km new gold anomaly discovered by Panther, Ironstone Gold – where drilling returned a high-grade intercept of 9m at 46.5g/t that remains open along strike and at depth – and Comet Well, where more than 40oz of nuggets were discovered in one campaign.

Ticking the boxes

These extremely high-grade results come just a couple of weeks after Panther delivered a “transformative” 70.6-million-tonne maiden nickel-cobalt resource at its Coglia project in WA. The resource came in 40% larger than expected and ahead of schedule.

Panther only listed in December 2021, hit the ground running and continues to deliver at its projects.

Tuffin said the company would now progress with a full review of the Burtville East results and follow up with a new drill plan to further test, and explore for new, mineralised trends in the area.

This story was developed in collaboration with Panther Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.