Panthera Resources (AIM:PAT), the AIM-listed gold exploration and development company with assets in West Africa and India, said Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling at its Bido Project in Burkina Faso has returned significant gold intersections at the Kwademen prospect.
The results have allowed the company to define a maiden Exploration Target of between 0.7 million ounces and 1.6 million ounces of gold, a conceptual estimate that Panthera cautions is not sufficient to support a Mineral Resource until further drilling is completed.
The best intersections included 56 metres at 1.16 grams per tonne gold from 76 metres in hole KWD26-RC-035, including a higher-grade section of 28 metres at 2.04 grams per tonne from 88 metres, and 40 metres at 0.59 grams per tonne gold from 10 metres in hole KWD26-RC-018, including 18 metres at 1.02 grams per tonne from 14 metres.
Panthera is pursuing an international arbitration claim through its Australian subsidiary Indo Gold Pty seeking US$1.58 billion from the Republic of India over its Bhukia gold project in Rajasthan, a case that has dominated recent newsflow; Thursday's update shifts attention back to the company's West African exploration pipeline.
"This year's follow-up holes have demonstrated that these zones occur within a mineralised system, running over some 1400 metres of strike and between approximately 100 m to 330 m in width, with several holes ending in mineralisation," said Mark Bolton, Panthera's managing director.
The 2026 campaign completed 34 holes for 4,086 metres, following up on a maiden 2025 programme of 17 holes for 1,859 metres that had confirmed the general tenor of gold mineralisation reported in historical drilling by BUVOGMI, a previous operator in the area.
Twenty-two further holes across the Kwademen West Zone returned broader, lower-grade intersections that, combined with the two standout holes, underpinned the exploration target calculation.
A wireframe simulation run as a check on the rule-of-thumb target estimate produced a range of 820,000 ounces to 1.85 million ounces, based on a tonnage of roughly 79.7 million tonnes and gold grades of 0.32 grams per tonne without a cut-off, rising to 0.72 grams per tonne using a 0.1 gram per tonne cut-off.
Bolton said the drill density remains too wide-spaced to define a Mineral Resource but is sufficient to frame the scale of the Kwademen system.
"Our focus now turns to infill drilling on the higher-grade core of the western zone, with the objective of converting a first portion of that target into a MRE that can be reported in accordance with the Guidelines of the JORC Code, 2012," he said.
Panthera noted that potential extensions of mineralisation indicated by soil geochemistry and geophysical surveys have not yet been drill-tested and could materially expand the Kwademen exploration target.
The Bido tenement also hosts other prospects, including Somika Hill and Beredo-Kiekouyou, where previous drilling reported in November 2024 returned intersections such as 14 metres at 0.91 grams per tonne gold at Somika Hill and 2 metres at 4.45 grams per tonne gold at Beredo-Kiekouyou, alongside an untested geochemical anomaly at the Central Anomaly prospect and a newly identified soil anomaly at South Kwademen.