Ann: Appointment of Voluntary Administrators, page-43

Multinational commodity trader Trafigura is in pole position to take control of Australia’s Savannah nickel mine, after the mine’s owner Panoramic Resources was put into administration on Thursday.

FTI Consulting will seek to sell or recapitalise Panoramic, which reopened the Savannah mine in the Kimberley region in 2021 but struggled this year when nickel prices halved, an important piece of machinery failed and bad weather severed an important transport route for the company.

Nickel prices have slumped on a supply surge from Indonesia. AP

Advisory firm Treadstone Partners had spent the past month trying to save the company through a sale or joint venture deal, but Panoramic was put into administration when those efforts failed to bear fruit.

The imminent fire sale of Panoramic’s assets will be a litmus test of whether Australia’s top nickel bulls, IGO Limited and Andrew Forrest’s Wyloo, have an appetite for further acquisitions after a difficult year in nickel.

They would probably need to outbid Trafigura, which is believed to have security over Panoramic’s assets according to the details of an unresolved loan announced to the ASX in April 2021.

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