Pantera completes Gillham drilling as Corona gold project enters exploration phase

Gillham assays become Pantera’s immediate catalyst

Pantera Minerals Limited (ASX:PFE) has completed the first known modern subsurface test of the historic Gillham antimony-silver district in Arkansas, finishing nine diamond holes for 906 metres on 16 October. The company has sent 54 samples for multi-element assay and expects results in late November, leaving the next meaningful readout dependent on whether high-grade surface mineralisation continues below the old workings.

“Dycus Rig on site at the first hole.”

The campaign targeted the Davis, Stewart and May prospects, where earlier surface sampling returned results including up to 19.2% antimony, 63.8 grams per tonne silver, 8.6% zinc and 7.44% lead. Those are selective rock-chip samples rather than representative estimates of average grade or width, a distinction that matters until drilling establishes continuity. Pantera said no assay results had been received when the quarterly report was prepared and did not report visual estimates from the core.

The program follows the Gillham drilling launch, which targeted mineralisation beneath historic mines in the company’s US critical-minerals portfolio. Pantera now plans to combine the assays with structural measurements and downhole data before ranking follow-up and step-out targets across the roughly 5,000-acre project.

Corona adds 470km² of untested gold tenure

“Location of the Corona Gold Project relative to Kalgoorlie, regional mills and BPM Minerals’ Forelands Project.”

Pantera has also completed its acquisition of the Corona Gold Project in Western Australia’s Albany Fraser Orogen, paying A$40,000 in cash and issuing A$160,000 worth of shares. The transaction gives it 100% ownership of about 470km² of granted exploration licences roughly 200km east of Kalgoorlie, alongside a combined 2% gross revenue royalty held by the vendors.

The acquisition was completed on 27 October, after the quarter ended, following ministerial consent and other conditions. Corona’s central exploration case is an approximately 8km gold-in-bedrock aircore anomaly aligned with an interpreted major structure. Historical drilling included 6 metres at 1.50 grams per tonne gold, including 2 metres at 2.55 grams per tonne, but only one historical RC hole was drilled near the immediate anomaly.

That makes the Corona acquisition completion more a target-generation milestone than a discovery result: the historical evidence remains unverified by Pantera. The company intends to begin heritage and access discussions, validate the historical database, conduct closer-spaced ultrafine-fraction soil sampling and then seek approvals for aircore and RC drilling. Parts of the tenements overlap the Cundeelee Aboriginal Reserve and Queen Victoria Spring Nature Reserve, so access arrangements remain part of the work program.

EnergyX exposure gains an offtake signal without direct revenue

Pantera’s 2.34 million EnergyX shares provide a second, less direct source of portfolio interest. EnergyX has since signed a binding, take-or-pay 10-year agreement with Trafigura covering 100,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium products from its Black Giant project in Chile and Lonestar in Texas. EnergyX has described the arrangement as approximately US$2 billion of revenue over the term, based on an assumed lithium price of about US$20,000 per tonne.

The filing is careful about what that means for Pantera. The explorer is not a party to the agreement and has no direct entitlement to EnergyX’s sales proceeds. Its holding has no quoted market price, while the most recent priced EnergyX raising implies an unaudited indicative carrying value of about A$42 million. Pantera has not announced a revised valuation or a forecast financial impact from the offtake. The development builds on the EnergyX stake re-rating, which followed a higher priced capital raising, but it does not convert the private holding into realised cash.

Cash position leaves limited room for delay

Pantera ended September with A$1.615 million in cash after A$560,000 of operating outflows and A$1.723 million of net investing inflows during the quarter. The Appendix 5B reports estimated funding of 1.84 quarters based on relevant quarterly outgoings of A$878,000 and available cash, with no unused financing facilities. A further A$2.0 million payment from EnergyX, linked to the sale of the Smackover Lithium Brine Project, is due on 1 April 2027 and was not presented as quarter-end cash.

That timing places particular importance on exploration sequencing and the receipt of the EnergyX-related payment. Pantera said it expects to continue operations at the current cash-flow level and has assessed that it can address any additional funding requirement if needed. The next test is whether Gillham produces a result strong enough to justify follow-up drilling while Corona moves through heritage, access and approval steps, all before the company’s cash timetable becomes more demanding.