Panther Metals (PALM) has received assay results for the recent mine tailings sampling programme undertaken at the Winston project, located on the historic Winston Lake Mine tailings storage facility in Ontario, Canada.
The tailings assay results exceeded Panther's expectations, returning high grade gold, gallium, silver, zinc, copper and cobalt.
Among the highlights were samples grading 0.814 grams per tonne gold, 21.9 grams silver, 2.20% zinc, 0.20 % copper, 496 parts per million cobalt, and 122 ppm gallium.
In addition, a rock sample from a historical massive sulphide dump at the Pick Lake deposit located around 1.4 kilometres west of the tailings storage facility yielded 25.3% zinc, 3.0% copper, 0.55 grams per tonne gold, 119 grams silver, 388 parts per million cobalt and 26.2 ppm gallium.
The Winston Lake mine was operational from 1988 to 1998, producing approximately 3.3 million tonnes of ore and yielding zinc, copper, silver, and gold.
Based on historic processing recoveries it is believed that a significant quantity of valuable material was not captured and remains in the tailing storage facility. These assay results confirm that is the case.
"These exciting assay results confirm our best hopes for the considerable value potential of precious metals and critical minerals stored within the Winston tailings pond,” said Darren Hazelwood, Panther’s chief executive.
“The historical production records, summarised in the 2021 feasibility study and documented in mining production reports, pointed to a significant proportion of gold passing through the processing plant and into the tailings, as the processing plant was only optimised to produce high-grade zinc and copper concentrates and gold prices were considerably lower than today. The tailings assay results confirm this belief and strongly point to the tailings containing considerable in-situ value at today's commodity prices. Whilst we will now have to do the detailed metallurgical studies and recovery plant design, we see the potential for near-term cashflow and profits in the many millions. We believe revenue from the tailings has the potential to both fund the Winston resource growth drilling and mine redevelopment, to fund exploration across our portfolio and to supplement our bitcoin treasury. The cashflow will provide Panther the opportunity to develop any discoveries on our own terms not beholden to the market, and will underpin our ability to attract non-dilutive finance.”
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The results from the sampling programme strongly support the idea of further sampling and metallurgical testwork to determine the most economic and environmentally sensitive route for extracting the precious metals and other critical minerals from the tailings. Much of the needed infrastructure is already in place for the potential tailings reprocessing, including high-voltage grid power, active water treatment facilities, and the pond. Hazelwood calls this “a dream scenario for a junior exploration company,” and if he can finance the start of the tailings retreatment with debt rather than equity, as he hopes, it’ll be hard to disagree with him.