Pantoro takes the bull by the horns

Pantoro (ASX: PNR) is proving it can move quickly on a golden opportunity. Coming off a merger in 2023 with its then 50% partner at Norseman, Tulla Resources, Pantoro has posted improved results in every quarter following the commencement of operations at the gold mine.

With surging production and gold prices, what will Pantoro do with its newfound resources? The Australian Mining Review speaks with Pantoro managing director Paul Cmrlec to find out.

Dynamic strategy

At the start of 2024, Pantoro announced a major modification to its mining strategy at the Scotia mining centre, reducing the open pit scope and bringing forward underground development, citing ongoing cost escalation in the open pit environment.

Mr Cmrlec comments on the change to the mining strategy.

“We went underground earlier than we originally planned, so that brought profitability in the pit forward and allowed us to get into the into the underground,” he said.

“At the same time, we’ve continued to invest a large amount of capital into the development of the OK mine, which now sees that producing at around 40,000ozpa on its own and that’s substantially above what was previously planned.”

Mr Cmrlec says Pantoro was able to achieve this due to their capital investment into the OK mine.

“We’ve run two capital development jumbos for the entire time that we’ve been operating and that’s put us a long way ahead of where we would have been at OK,” he said.

“At Scotia, we redesigned the pit to allow us to get into underground positions from May 2024 which sees us producing faster than originally planned as well.”

Scotia Underground operations are expected to be in steady state by the end of the March 2025 quarter.

Mr Cmrlec says getting Scotia to steady state all comes down to fully developing adequate production positions.

“We have three jumbos working at the Scotia mine as we speak and that will step up to four jumbos from early 2025,” he said.

The underground mine will transition to become the primary feed source for the operation over the coming years, increasing feed grade to the processing plant.

“Scotia is scheduled to do roughly 65,000ozpa,” said Mr Cmrlec.

“That, combined with the OK mine sees us producing the 100,000oz that that we have got in the market.

“But those two mines are only filling sort of 60-70% of the mill capacity, so we still have additional open pit feed filling the remainder of that plant.

“We should see that production growth continuing to step up.”

Operating above capacity

The Norseman processing plant has operated above nameplate capacity for much of the year and is now comfortably running 20% above nameplate capacity at an annualised rate of 1.2mtpa.

“We’re in a position now where we’re processing 20% more than originally planned,” Mr Cmrlec said.

“We’re comfortable that we can expand that to somewhere between 1.4-1.5mtpa without any major changes in the mill and we will look at doing that once the additional underground feed comes on.

“We have a large growth program underway right now, which is aimed at expanding the size of the Scotia mine further and opening up at least two additional mines over the next two years in the main field.

“The aim of that is to have that full capacity in the process plant being fed by high grade underground material and if we achieve that, we’ll see some very substantial production growth.”

As part of ongoing optimisation work, Pantoro has successfully reduced several key consumables at the plant, including reagents, mill balls, crusher mill and liners.

Pantoro says mill reliability has been excellent with 99% utilisation for the second half of the year.

Despite the increased milling rate, gold recoveries have remained high as expected at over 93%.

Gold on the horizon

Following these achievements, expansion of mine operations has become a priority for Pantoro.

Pantoro released its FY25 exploration strategy to the ASX during June 2024, outlining an initial $25m budget which will entail surface and underground drilling and re-entry and rehabilitation of the Bullen underground mine.

The Bullen mine provides access to the majority of the Norseman Mainfield with the objecting of delineating several large additional mining areas.

Work to execute this growth strategy is well underway with drilling from the surface in the Butterfly area of the Mainfield mining area commencing in September 2024. Extensional drilling from underground at Scotia also commenced during September 2024.

“We have a large-scale drill program in the Mainfield,” Mr Cmrlec said.

“We’re drilling in the butterfly area, where I believe there’ll be another underground mine supported by existing infrastructure, which is the Viking decline.

“At the same time, we’re currently setting up for re-entry into the Bullen decline.

“We expect to be drilling in the Crown Reef, primarily from March 2025.

“That Mainfield, which includes Flying Bull, has been the largest producer in Norseman historically and we believe is likely to move back to that position pretty quickly, once it’s properly drilled.”

Pantoro has a clear objective to add at least two additional underground mines to the operation to replace lower grade open pit feed material with higher grade ore, thereby increasing target production to +200,000ozpa.

“We’ve got additional open pits starting in the Princess Royal area in March 2025 as well,” Mr Cmrlec said.

“While the open pits of Scotia are completed, we will roll on to new open pits early in 2025.

“Once those pits finish, we have a progression of large-scale pits to continue beyond them.

“While we’re trying to focus on having primarily underground feed through the processing plant, we do have a long pipeline of open pits to continue to support our production.”

Pantoro says exploration and project teams are now in place to control the growth activities during the exciting year ahead.

Making the most of its potential

With current and future successes all lined up, Pantoro will be able to realise the potential of its operations. Norseman, which produces about 6moz historically and has a substantial mineral resource at high grade, is part of the highly prospective Yilgarn Craton, clustered near other large gold deposits.

Pantoro’s holdings are situated in the southern end of the mot gold-endowed Greenstone Belt of the Yilgarn Craton, the Norseman-Wiluna Greenstone Belt, which has seen 195moz of gold produced to date.

The Norseman tenure is a significant proportion of the highly prospective region, including Lake Cowan which has had minimal modern exploration. There may be a wealth of untapped resources here, as Pantoro’s drill programs are the first systematic exploration across the entire consolidated tenement package since the 1990s.