The strengthening gold price has Panoramic Resources considering...

The strengthening gold price has Panoramic Resources considering a float of its Gigdee gold project, saying an initial public offering based around the asset may be the best way to realise its value.


Gidgee — now renamed the Gum Creek gold project — has been on the market for most of the last year, but Panoramic has yet to find a buyer for the near-term gold mine, which has 1.3 million ounce resource.


Panoramic released a scoping study on the project in March, putting a capital cost on $62 million on a mine producing 290,000oz over an initial six year mining life, with all-in sustaining costs of about $1209/oz. That is less than half of the $127 million capital cost a 2012 feasibility study put on the project.


A large portion — about 550,000oz — of the project’s resource is refractory ore, however, which is more difficult to treat. Refractory ore projects have particularly struggled to win traction with investors following the high-profile failure of Apex Minerals’ Wiluna gold project a few years ago.