Pantoro upgrades its gold resources and reserves at Nicolsons

Pantoro Limited (ASX: PNR) has reported a significant upgrade to the mineral resources and ore reserves at the Nicolsons Gold Project.

Mineral resources have been updated in the Nicolsons, Wagtail, and Rowdies orebodies.

Key Highlights:

• The total Mineral Resource now stands at 1.58 million tonnes @ 7.43 g/t for 376,701 ounces.
• The total Ore Reserve now stands at 773,252 tonnes @ 7.35 g/t for 182,823 ounces, a 62% increase after mining depletion.
• The Ore Reserve provides a base case life of approximately four years, with excellent potential for further increases through drilling and mine development.
• Mineralisation remains open at depth in all lodes currently being mined at Nicolsons and Wagtail. Ongoing drilling programs are continuing aimed at establishing additional Ore Reserve increases in the near term.
• When taking total mining depletion (by Pantoro and reported by other companies historically) of approximately 74,000 ounces into account, the total known gold endowment for the project is over 451,000 ounces.
• Early ore mining on the first two levels in the southern Johnston Lode has already resulted in development of high grade ore from outside of the new Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve. The results to date suggest that further upgrades, similar to those seen in early development of the northern Hall and Anderson Lodes may eventuate.
• The Pantoro Board of Directors has approved acceleration of exploration activities across the project areas with additional drilling from both surface and underground. Exploration activities in the coming year will include increased drilling activity, extensive geochemical sampling programs, and geophysical surveys to identify additional targets across the Company’s tenements.

Key mineral resource details are set out in the table below:

Pantoro production to the end of April 2017 is 46,065 ounces, historical production reported by Precious Metals Australia is approximately 23,000 ounces and historical production reported by Rewah is approximately 4,800 ounces.

Key ore reserve details are set out in the table below:

Commenting on the mineral resource and ore reserve upgrade, Managing Director Paul Cmrlec said:

“Pantoro commenced gold production at Nicolsons less than two years ago. Since that time, we have undertaken major production increases and expanded exploration efforts using cashflow generated from the operation.

Both Nicolsons and Wagtail have consistently outperformed the previous ore reserve estimates and we continue to encounter very high grade mineralisation at Nicolsons and Wagtail. This mineral resource and ore reserve upgrade has produced substantial mine life extension, and exploration results during the past year have proven the huge potential of this project. We continue to believe that we have only scratched the surface at Halls Creek with plenty of upside to come.

The Pantoro board has recently approved acceleration of exploration activity as the company seeks to define Western Australia’s next major gold mining camp. We will continue to aggressively explore with the clear intention to facilitate further production increases through ore reserve growth in the near term.”

Mineral Resource and Ore Reserve Update

The mineral resource and ore reserve has been constructed in compliance with the requirements of the JORC 2012 guidelines.

Additional ore has been identified using drilling data, combined with mine development activities. The new mineral resource and ore reserve is compared with the previous estimate in the table below.

The previous mineral resource and ore reserve estimate was released to the ASX on the 30 May 2016 in a release titled “Mineral resource and ore reserve upgrade demonstrates strong growth potential at Nicolsons”.

The new mineral resource and ore reserve update is calculated as at the 30 April 2017. A comparison of the previous mineral resource Estimate and the current mineral resource estimate is provided below.