Panther kicks off fresh drilling round to unlock ‘world-class’ battery metals potential at Coglia
Panther kicks off fresh drilling round to unlock ‘world-class’ battery metals potential at Coglia
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Panther Metals will shortly begin a second round of targeted extensional drilling in a bid to add further to the already large 70.6-million-tonne nickel and cobalt resource at its flagship Coglia project.
Panther Metals (ASX:PNT) is aiming to convert its JORC exploration target (JET) of 32-64 million tonnes to boost the existing large nickel-cobalt resource and demonstrate the scale potential of the Coglia project in Western Australia.
The 5.5km long Coglia resource is already one of Western Australia’s top 10 largest JORC-2012 compliant nickel deposits not owned by a major, with significant further exploration upside.
Located within trucking distance to Glencore’s Murrin Murrin HPAL plant, Coglia became Panther’s flagship battery metals project shortly after listing in December 2021.
“Focused on resource growth, the exploration program aims to further unlock the world class battery metals potential of Coglia,” managing director Daniel Tuffin said.
“This includes drilling to convert the Southern JET, which currently contains potential mineralisation of 32-64Mt of nickel (0.40 to 0.65%) and cobalt (400 to 600 ppm), into resource classification along with further extensional drilling of the Central target, and North and South resource areas.”
The Southern JET is a potential extension of the open Coglia South Deposit over a 2.8km strike length in addition to the current 5.5km long Coglia MRE.
Panther recently attracted significant interest in its rights issue targeting $2.7m, which led to the company undertaking a follow-on placement, increasing the total raised to over $3m and providing it with enough cash to pursue its “Big Four” exploration plan that includes extensional drilling at Coglia.
Multiple previously identified but untested walk-up drill targets at Coglia provide the exploration blue sky to support a substantial increase to the existing resource.
“Drilling is also planned for the untested East drill target, which if mineralised, has the potential to further add to the Coglia resource estimate,” Tuffin noted.
Additionally, Panther is planning to undertake further high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) testing.
Recent HPAL testing demonstrated a final nickel extraction of 92.6% and a cobalt extraction of 73.9% without any beneficiation.
HPAL, which has been in use since 1961 and is increasing in use, is the process used to extract nickel and cobalt from laterite ore bodies.
The process can quickly leach nickel and cobalt from laterite ores compared to traditional leaching methods, which are more time-intensive and result in lower recoveries.
“Additional HPAL testing will be carried out on these new target areas and a review of alternative processing techniques, such as heap leach, will be carried out to test the viability of their application to the project,” Tuffin said.
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.
