Pantoro: The Market Is Pricing Yesterday’s Mine. The Numbers Say Mid‑Tier.

Pantoro’s Quarterly Headline Disaster — And Why It’s Completely Mispriced

Pantoro’s quarterly looked ugly at first glance — lower production, higher AISC — and the market did what it always does: traded the headline and ignored the business. The weather smashed them, Scotia flooded, OK was mid contractor swap. Annoying for sure, temporary all the same. Nothing structural changed other than the grades they keep finding.

What actually matters is what’s happening underground, for me it’s the part the market hasn’t priced.

Scotia is quietly turning into a monster.

This isn’t incremental improvement — this is system scale growth hiding in plain sight. Three independent ore sources are now running for the first time since the decline went in. That alone is a major shift in mine flexibility. For me the drilling is the real story.

You don’t get 16m @ 10.6g/t, 10m @ 6.7g/t, 7m @ 11g/t, and 3.5m @ 49.8g/t in a mature system unless you’re tapping into something far larger than the current mine plan. These aren’t “nice hits”. These are the kind of intercepts that force planners to redraw stopes, extend declines, and rethink the entire production profile. If these results had dropped on a quiet day without the weather smashed quarter attached, the stock would’ve been up double digits. Instead they got buried under AISC panic. That’s the opportunity. Scotia isn’t the problem — Scotia is the reason you buy the dip.

And it’s not just Scotia.

Butterfly is shaping up as a second underground mine in the Mainfield. The hit rate is strong, and Pantoro already signalled the program is being expanded because the numbers demand it.

O’Briens/Crown South is already approved as the third underground mine. Most producers would kill for one new UG mine. Pantoro now has three in motion.

Gladstone starts feeding this quarter, adding near term tonnes and taking pressure off the undergrounds.

Despite all the operational noise, they still increased cash and gold by $37.8m and finished with $250m on the books. Zero debt. A buyback at $3.50. That’s not a stressed balance sheet — that’s a company absorbing a messy quarter and still printing money.

The only things that changed this quarter was the weather, diesel, and a contractor swap — all temporary.

I'm here for the multi year Norseman build out, this dip is a gift. I’m adding. The only real risk in my view is execution risk — not the thesis, which looks solid and if anything keeps getting firmer.

DISC: Hold IRL & SM(order in at time of writing)

30-Nov-2022: Halls Creek Gold was probably best viewed as providing the cashflow to keep the company going until they got Norseman up and running, which they now have. Norseman is going to be a much bigger operation and generate much more revenue, even though Pantoro only hold 50% of Norseman and they own 100% of Halls Creek. The interesting bit about Halls Creek is their recent PGE (platinum group elements) discovery - and whether they sell that off or try to develop that themselves.

Chalice Mining (CHN) were a gold miner and then they unearthed the largest PGE discovery in Australian history at their Gonneville deposit within the Julimar nickel-copper-PGE project in Western Australia. Now Chalice is all about Julimar and is no longer regarded as a gold company - which is why I removed them from my Gold Sector (Gold ETFs and Miners) watchlist over in the Gold as an Investment thread.

Further Reading: https://www.australianmining.com.au/features/is-australia-about-to-go-platinum/ [April 2022]

"As part of a maiden indicated and inferred mineral resource estimate published in November 2021, the Julimar discovery contains 10 million ounces of palladium, platinum and gold – collectively called 3E (3 elements) – plus more than 900 thousand tonnes of base metals, paving the way for the emergence of a new world-class critical minerals industry." - from that Australian Mining (.com.au) article linked to above.

Now Pantoro's Halls Creek PGE discovery is not even close to being in that league, but I'm just saying they could go off in that direction, which certainly seemed to pay off for CHN - particularly in 2021 when their SP went from around $4 to almost $10.

But of course I would not expect that sort of upside with PNR anyway, because they haven't found very much up there yet.

But, yes, I certainly regard their Halls Creek Gold operation to be at risk of being put on care and maintenance (C&M) or being sold off, possibly sold off along with the Halls Creek PGE tenements, now that Norseman is up and running.

In one respect, I think Pantoro is probably de-risked somewhat now that they are producing gold at Norseman, despite what happens up at Halls Creek. However, they are a small producer with just two production centres, and probably soon to be just the one, and they only own half of Norseman. Probably the best comparison is GOR - Gold Road, who only own half of one gold producing mine (Gruyere), however Gruyere is a lot bigger than the Norseman gold project, and they've been producing there for a few years now. Also, GOR own a massive amount of land in that area, especially to the east of Gruyere, which is mostly desert but could easily contain more decent gold deposits. I do hold some GOR shares in my SMSF. They're a longer term play. I think they will either (a) get bought out by their JV partners (Gold Fields Ltd, listed on the JSE in South Africa) or (b) they'll make another decent discovery of their own. Of course the other possible outcome is (c) neither - they just keep on making money from Gruyere until the gold runs out and then they eventually get wound up if they don't buy something else first.

I have sold out of Pantoro because I have previously identified this time as being one of the riskier times to be a shareholder of a gold miner - when they are commissioning and ramping up a new mill, and ironing out any problems or bottlenecks they encounter. The share price spikes tend to come:

• When they make a decent discovery, especially if the gold grades are high, even better if it's close to surface and easy to get to and process., or
• When they get their finance sorted and are building a mill to process that ore to get at that gold, or
• When the mill is running at or above nameplate capacity and they are upgrading production guidance, or
• When they become the focus of M&A activity, i.e. someone wants to buy them out.

And of course if they keep finding more gold, that's always good too. And if they start paying dividends and then keep paying them, that can move them up into a new level of interest from the market as well and give their SP some support.

But those periods in-between those milestones I mention there above tend to be times when the share price tends to head south east rather than north east, until the next milestone is achieved and they get a little rocket under the SP again. The underlying gold price will of course make a huge difference as well. If the gold price is rising strongly, people only seem to see the positives about gold miners, but when the gold price is falling, very little can prop up their falling share prices.

In the last little while, the A$ gold price hasn't been moving around too much, so we get to see that usual gold project development cycle with the associated share price spikes on positive announcements and the fall-backs in-between.

Apart from identifying this as a riskier period in which much can go wrong, I also sold Pantoro because I felt I was spreading my gold sector investments a little too thinly - so holding too many different companies, and having tried to work out a risk vs potential upside scenario for each of them, the ones I kept stacked up better (on paper at least) than Pantoro (PNR), Capricorn Metals (CMM), Emerald Resources (EMR) and Alkane Resources (ALK). I sold ALK a while back and the other three (from my real life portfolios) more recently. PNR and CMM are still in my Strawman.com virtual portfolio, for now, but not ALK or EMR (were previously, but not anymore). I prefer the larger more diversified gold producers, plus CAI and BGL as my two speculative project developers/emerging producers.

I still think Pantoro is OK, just not one of the best available options in my opinion at this point in time.

Yeah @Gprp , I tend to agree that sort of thing is probably an Orange light, or an orange flag. Not a red flag (or red light), but cause for caution. I don't mind companies prioritising ESG and embracing sustainability, but I want to see the evidence, or the actual progress rather than this sort of thing. I think they're trying to cast a wide net, we got gold, we got PGE, we got Lithium! And we're clean and green too! OK, good for you. But you're not one of the best options on the market for any one of those things right now, in my opinion.

14-Oct-2022: First gold poured at the Norseman Gold Project

Disclosure: I did hold Pantoro (PNR) shares, but sold them earlier this month for reasons I disclosed at the time (to consolidate the number of individual exposures I have to gold).

PNR closed at $0.175 today (Tues 18th October 2022), being lower than where they closed on each of the five trading days last week (a range of 18c to 19c/share), so pouring first gold is not a milestone that causes a share price spike generally speaking. What will be more important is how quickly they can ramp up their plant to nameplate production, and what issues they encounter along the way.

16-June-2020:  High Grade Results Continue from OK Underground Mine

I hold PNR Shares.  Overnight (during Monday in the US) gold threatened to fall below US$1700 an ounce in a volatile session.  The US dollar rallied early, which saw gold futures drop as low as $1705/oz.  The price has since recovered back to $1733/oz, only a few dollars lower than this time yesterday, after the Federal Reserve announced it would start buying corporate bonds.  US stocks were also volatile, opening lower but finishing 0.8% higher after the Fed announcement.  Our market is set to start on a positive note today after a couple of days of falls.

23-Apr-2020:  Princess Royal/Slippers Drilling Confirms Multiple Ore Zones

Up to 20.37 grams per tonne Gold.  Nice!!  I hold PNR shares.  The NGP is shaping up nicely.

20-Feb-2020:  Pantoro (PNR): RIU Explorers Conference Presentation - February 2020

I do have a small holding in PNR - they are not only explorers and developers, but they are also already gold producers at Halls Creek (100% PNR), and are now developing their 50%-owned Norseman Gold Project (NGP).  Slide 6 shows that they have some of the highest grades of both underground mineral resources and surface (open pit-able) mineral resources of any Australian gold producer, including the big ones.  As long as the geology is friendly and the processing is relatively straightforward, high grades generally translate into lower costs, which means higher profits, so it bodes well for their future.  However, they are very small, so still much higher risk than the bigger companies who have years of production already under their belts.  For that reason, my PNR holding is a lot smaller than my holdings in NST, EVN, SAR and/or SBM.  However, for those with a higher risk appetite, PNR might be worth keeping an eye on.