Panther Metals drew the interest of not only existing shareholders but also new instos to its recent capital raising, which closed heavily oversubscribed.

Panther Metals (ASX:PNT) was targeting $2.7m via a 1-for-2 renounceable rights issue which it successfully completed to aggressively pursue the expansion of the 70.6-million-tonne nickel and cobalt resource at its flagship Coglia project.

At the same time, the company attracted interest from new institutional and professional investors keen to also join the register.

This prompted Panther to undertake a follow-on placement, which will increase the total raised to over $3m, leaving the explorer well-funded to pursue its “Big Four” exploration plan that includes extensional drilling at Coglia.

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.

The project has two resource areas – the Northern and Southern areas – along with a southern JORC exploration target of 34-62Mt at 0.40-0.65% nickel and 400-600ppm cobalt.

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.

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, which was the first resource for the project and surpassed Panther’s initial expectations.

The maiden resource came in 40% larger and well above the 30-50Mt outlined in the JORC exploration target.

The existing 70.6-million-tonne resource already positions Coglia as a new standalone nickel-cobalt project in the Laverton region of WA.

The fresh cash injection will allow Panther to complete a 7,500m targeted extensional drilling program at Coglia, maiden drilling campaigns at the new Red Flag nickel sulphide discovery and 40 Mile Camp gold prospect, and expansion drilling at the Burtville East gold prospect.

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.