Panther announces large nickel/cobalt resource increase at Coglia

ASX-listed Panther Metals has released its maiden nickel/cobalt mineral resource estimate (MRE) for its Coglia project in Western Australia, which exceeds the upper limit of the former Joint Ore Reserves Committee (Jorc) exploration target (JET) by 20-million tonnes, constituting a 40% increase over the former JET. Panther MD Daniel Tuffin said on Monday the results constituted a transformative outcome for the company. The resource, which is a 70.6-million-tonne nickel/cobalt resource stretching about 5 km, far surpassed the results that were previously expected. He believed the discovery marked Coglia as a new standalone nickel/cobalt project. The company’s maiden Coglia drill programme also resulted in a new Southern JET of between 34-million tonnes and 62-million tonnes at between 0.40% and 0.65% nickel and between 400 ppm and 600 ppm cobalt over a total area of about 2.7 km2 and a strike length of about 2.8 km. Meanwhile, internal geophysical modelling and interpretation had highlighted a further two drill targets – ‘East’ and ‘Central’ – covering a total area of about 3.7 km2. “These new targets, in addition to the MRE, have vastly increased the potential scale of the Coglia project. The company will now commence a review to plan further drilling to infill the South Coglia domain and test the new Southern Jorc, East and Central targets,” Tuffin stated. The mineral resource has been stated at a 0.5% nickel cut-off grade. This cut-off grade has been used to approximate potential marginal mining cut-off grades for openpit mining methods. The maiden Coglia nickel/cobalt mineral resource was modelled using both reverse circulation (RC) and air-core drilling. The drilling database contains 48 air-core holes totalling 2 866 m and 81 RC holes totalling 7 499 m, with downhole depths of between 18 m and 151 m.