PFE - maiden US antimony-silver drilling to start in August
Our Investment Pantera Minerals (ASX: PFE | OTCQB: PTMLF) just locked in a contractor for its firsts ever drill program at its Arkansas antimony-silver project.
The program is for ~10 diamond holes for ~1,500m, with the rig turning in the third week of August and finished within four to six weeks.
It will be the first known drilling ever done on the project, testing at depth beneath historic mines that produced stibnite (the antimony mineral) into the 1940s.
(source)
The targets have come from this year's sampling, which returned rock chips up to 19.2% antimony and 63.8g/t silver, plus soils peaking at 2,660ppm antimony over a ~2km corridor.
The drilling is expected to take 4-6 weeks and assays will be reported as they come to hand, so we wait to see if the drilling shows up anything that the old timers never found.
PFE heads into drilling with cash in the bank, having just received A$2M from its US lithium project sale to EnergyX, with another A$2M due in April 2027.
PFE also still holds ~A$42M worth of EnergyX shares, well above its current $8.4M market cap.
(source)
EnergyX is a private company so those shares can't easily be sold, but has intentions to list publicly, which could let PFE realise that value to support future cashflow if this were to happen.
(There is no guarantee EnergyX ever lists or that PFE realises any of this value, which would be the main reason PFE sells at such a discount to this implied value).
We covered PFE's EnergyX holding in our last note, and EnergyX has been busy doing some deals of its own: PFE's ~A$42M private investment receives US$225M investment from $97BN Eni
What do we want to see PFE do next?
Updates on PFE’s EnergyX holding:
- ✅ A$2M deferred cash from the EnergyX sale - due July 2026. (source))
- 🔲 EnergyX IPO or trade sale (this one is a complete unknown in terms of timing)
Target Generation on US critical minerals project
We want to see PFE sample, map and run geophysics on its US asset to identify drill targets.
Here are the milestones we are tracking:
- ✅Mapping and sampling
- ✅ Drill targets confirmed
- 🔄 Maiden drill program - planned July/August 2026 (source)
After PFE has identified priority drill targets, we want to see the company drill test the project.
