Gold, Silver, and Gallium Found in Ontario Tailings | Darren Hazelwood

Panther Metals (LSE: PALM) is advancing the Winston tailings project in Ontario, where historic zinc-focused processing left behind potential value in precious and critical metals. The Winston mine operated from 1988 to 1999 and was once considered one of the highest-grade zinc operations in North America, but gold and silver were largely overlooked when prices were far lower.

Speaking with Kitco Mining at PDAC 2026, CEO Darren Hazelwood said early sampling from the polymetallic tailings has already confirmed encouraging grades. “We ended up with grades of up to 0.82 grams a ton gold, over 13 grams a ton silver,” Hazelwood said. The samples came from the upper layer of a tailings pond that extends more than 18 meters deep in places and also contains gallium and indium.

Panther is now carrying out additional work aimed at delivering a maiden mineral resource estimate in the coming months. “The catalyst for us is definitely going to be the MRE on Winston,” Hazelwood said.

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To learn more about Panther Metals, visit:
 https://panthermetals.com/

00:38 - Winston Tailings Project Backstory and Historic Zinc Mine
02:33 - Tailings Sampling Results and Winston MRE Plan
04:06 - CEO Background and Mining Market Cycles
06:27 - Why Panther Listed on the LSE Main Market
07:39 - Canada Dual Listing Plans and Obonga Greenstone Belt
09:54 - Winston Resource Potential and Extract Technology
11:45 - 2026 Catalysts and Winston Work Program
12:53 - Path to Production and Existing Infrastructure
14:05 - Offtake Interest and Funding with Traxys
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris here with the 2026 Prospectors and Developers Association Conference or PDAC in Toronto in Canada. We are talking about critical minerals in Canada and a great pleasure to be joined by Darren Hazelwood, CEO of Panther Medals, which trades on the LSE under the ticket PALM. Darren, welcome to Kitco. Thanks for having me on. It's not often we get an LSE company, so I'm going to take full advantage of this. You have the Winston VMS Zinc Tailings Project in Ontario and Canada. Although it's a zinc tailings project, you're not really looking for zinc, you're looking for critical minerals and precious metals. Let's start with a bit of backstory about Panther and how you came by the project.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Yeah, so the Winston project itself is on the north shore of Lake Ontario. It's a very well-known mine in Canada due to its grade. And the zinc grade there was said to be the highest grade zinc in North America at the time. It produced from 1988 to 1999. Now earlier on in Panther's development, we had an exploration project about 20 kilometres from the Winston mine. So I was well aware of it, and I'd always kept an eye on the project. And we'd noticed it had gone dormant. So I did some research, and within that process, I'd actually picked there's a uh feasibility study done in 2021, and buried within the feasibility study was some of the grades that were recovered from the process in between 88 and 99. What people need to remember is at that time the price of silver, the price of gold, that they were it was in the Gordon Brown era in the UK, if people remember that. Gold got down to$270 an ounce, I think chopped out around$450. Silver was was was not worth the effort of trying to recover it. So what they'd done, and rightly so at the time, they optimised their plant recoveries for the zinc and to focus on the zinc. And I I I picked up that the gold gold within the the project, it had topped out at 20.54% recovery, and they'd actually produced 50,000 ounces over the life of mine. And I found that incredibly interesting. But that led to me reaching out to um First Quantum. They own the mine site, they manage the mine site, and they've actually got it under a closure plan at this stage, and we've got an option on it for four years. Um we went to site in um January uh sorry, July of 2025, and we done a really small program, effectively a soil auger, just to test. And what we were looking for, we knew we'd only go into the very top layer, it's a polymetallic uh uh tailings pond, so that means he's got water cover that works to our advantage, and I can touch on that in a while. Why that is. We took some samples, always looking for at that point was some anomalous recoveries, and that she really ended up with grades of up to 0.82 grams a ton gold, over 13 grams a ton silver, and this was from the very top layer. Now, this tailings pond we know now goes over 18 meters deep in places, the tailings themselves. Um, but from that top sort of two or three hundred mil, we know the sulfides would have been heavier, so they would have settled to the bottom. But even with all that taken into account, we got high grades for tailings of silver, gold, gallium. Um, there's some indium in there as well. There is still some zinc and copper, but maybe of a lower grade that that was recovered during processing. And we took a view at that point that we had to go further down the line. The data that we'd initially looked at was getting confirmation, and the new data we got confirmed the historic data to a certain extent, and we're now actually working on site at the moment doing a comprehensive programme that would lead to an MRE within we we hope about two months. Okay, uh Darren, incidentally, what's your background? So I'm I'm I would be classed as an entrepreneur in in the UK. I've had various businesses, but my my focus was on the um the resource and mining space in London. I was notifiable at one point in in six companies. Now I had I have a view on on a mining company and exploration and capital structures and um and decided to step into the role when the opportunity rose in in 2019. This company was on a very junior market in London. I knew that our first job would have to be to get it onto a major trading market, and I bought it to the LSE in January of 2020, right into the teeth of COVID, uh, which kicks off in the February. So that kind of stunted our development, that golden runway you have when you list of sort of the year and a half, two years. Well, in our case, unfortunately, that was spent in COVID, but it meant that we could also develop the business without maybe the uh the critiquing that you would normally expect. But um, of course, not long after COVID started draw to draw to a close. I think Canada opened up yeah 7th of September 2021. Then you had Russia going to Ukraine in early 22, and um the brutal bear market for the entire sector kicked in. And I took the decision at that point. I spoke to the board, I said to them I felt it would be bad. Um, risk capital had just dropped off the table, that we would focus on keeping moving the business forward, always developing the business. But our main focus would be to keep control of the capital structure because when the market turned in, it was always inevitable that this market would turn. There are seriously supply constraints across the entire commodity suite, as we've recently witnessed with the the rise in gold and silver. That hasn't happened by mistake, but the industrial minerals that there's major issues are in the west. We've seen this east-west split just grow and then that chasm's becoming wider, and we're gonna have to fill that void with critical minerals and precious metals from western supply chains.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

And with the the what's going on in Iran at the moment, that's perhaps even becoming ever more critical and present to do that. Uh, before we carry on sort of talking about the project, um, you mentioned you listed on the London Stock Exchange. Why the London Stock Exchange is not the aim of the alternative investment market, which is typically where smaller starting out uh mining and exploration companies go.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Well, actually, that that that that feeds all the way back to my belief in keeping hold of the capital structure. On the LSE, you have a limit of 20% you can raise per annum. So that's as an insurance policy for investors, but also you don't need the nomad structure that an AIM company does, and a nomad structure comes with a a not insubstantial cost, and also you you have to have by the rules and regs, you have to have financial PR being on AIM. So you've already got a six-figure uh cost on your cost base that is alleviated by being on the main market. However, you've also got a restriction on the main market, the 20% rule. So that means you have to be adaptable and adjust your thinking and uh uh as as you raise capital and where you where what what you finance and how you use that capital, and that appealed to me um uh as somebody that's looking to grow the overall structure of the business, not just as a trading instrument.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Well, we're on the subject of markets. Uh you've got a project in Canada, you're also looking at you all listening in Canada. Uh tell me a little bit about that. What market are you thinking of? What's the timing on that?

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Okay, so we're we're we're looking to come to the CSE. Um, we've actually our prospectus has been lodged and we've had our first turn from the um Ontario Securities Commission, and um we're reviewing that turn now. But my understanding is from our lawyers that would you you could effectively press the button on a 90-day clock. So within 90 days, I would hope to have the company listed, and it's that all of our projects are in Canada. The the aim is with Winston is to come near-term cash generative that will alleviate our needs to rely on the the capital markets, but we've also got uh the Abonga greenstone belt that we'll be drilling this year, and um on that green stone belt that has a it has a we've made a discovery on there of a VMS system, and we've hit 11.6% zinc, only over half a metre. And we've also got a further discovery around seven kilometres away at a place called Survey. But this greenstone belt is a sister greenstone belt to Sturgeon's Lake. Sturgeons Lake had five past producing VMS mines on there, they all produce commercially from the late 60s to the early 90s. And a bonga has not been looked at in the same way that Sturgeon's Lake are, despite the rocks and everything being that that they're they're sister greenstone belts. And we've made the discovery five holes, we hit four brand new VMS lenses. Any one of those has the potential to contain a deposit, and we're only just scratching the surface there. So the idea is that you've got a district scale opportunity in Ontario, in Canada, two and a half hours north of Thunder Bay, and we need to use the flow-through funding to enable us to bring the capital in at a cost that doesn't destroy our structure and looks after existing investors, as well as giving a good opportunity for new investors coming in.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So that's part of the rationale for having the dual listing to be able to access the flow through from that. Okay, well, let's go back to to Winston. Um you spoke about doing the auger drilling, you said you got a resource estimate coming at some point in the near future. Do you have an idea of what the potential volume of material you have there is and um potentially what grade of the different elements you mentioned, what grade it has?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I think we're gonna have to wait till the results start coming through. Um we're working with um extract, who are a new company that are making waves behind the scenes in the industry, and that's a proprietary technology, it's non-cyanide, non-acid, uh, it's a closed loop system, so that the the environmental potential environmental impact is almost zero from working with extract. Uh, once this once we go into the next phase with extract, we'll start to get an idea of the early stages of recovery, it's a four-phase process, about 10 months. Um, and yeah, it's an exciting moment for us.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Okay, and what with the potential for the extract technology, can that potentially recover the whole suite of minerals? I mean, obviously, depending on grade and uh the marketability and price, of course, but it can it take out all the different things you're potentially looking or would like to take out?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Yeah, it's multi-element recovery. So, in basic form, what happens? A solution gets pregnant on phase one, and in phase two, the the system then drags the commodity out of the pregnant solution. So, in simple terms, you would have gold within the solution, and I'm not saying this is exactly how it's going to operate, just for clarification. But the the the the the the system will pull the gold out, the the the the the and next stage it may pull the silver, then it may pull the gallium, then the indium, and it runs through that. So it's the multi-element processing.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

So hydrometallurgical process flows. Okay, so um you know you've got various things going on. What's the work plan for this year? What are some of the key catalysts?

SPEAKER_00 11:56

I think the catalyst for us is definitely going to be the MRE on Winston, and we're expecting that within a couple of months, and what that's gonna do is underpin a valuation, and that that is very much our focus, and and and as part of the overall strategy, when we because we come into Canada, we're doing a non-offering prospectus, so we're not raising um on listing. But the idea is that we can then do high-level exploration work on a bonga to complement the work on Winston because Winston effectively, after this works program, it becomes an administrative process as opposed to a physical work process, and the opportunities we've got elsewhere in terms of developing the exploration side, we're going to run them in parallel, so it's gonna be a very strong news flow period for us over an extended time, and it will tie in nicely with our dual listing.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Assuming the uh the resource calculation in Winston goes well and the testing you're doing with extract technology goes well. What potential timeline are you looking at to be able to I guess build the process plant and be able to start producing and therefore cash flowing?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

At this stage we would be targeting within two years. This is an historic mine site, it has everything you would want in terms of infrastructure, and it's very important people understand that that that that has major implications on CapEx. It has electricity, it has a substation, a working substation already on site. It has a road right up to the the gate of the mine site. The mine site itself is is is is is gated all the way around. It has roads inside the mine site. Um anybody that's ever worked with First Quantum will know that these guys work for the highest standards, and that's reflected on what you're seeing at Winston, but of course, it's also for our benefit is reflected in the infrastructure being there. So, what you're looking at is a processing plant to be built, and a very small amount of infrastructure to support that would be needed to be conducted by us. It's a perfect scenario.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Extract is one of the sort of companies you're working with or partnering with. Um the suite of metals you're looking to produce, there's some quite specialist metals there, such as gallium and indium, the base metals as well. Um, how are you looking at the sort of commercialisation aspect? Because you know, some of these things are very specialist. Uh he is working with traders. What are your thoughts and ideas there?

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Well, look um literally two weeks ago we announced uh a letter of interest from Traxi, the commodity trader. Now they're there, they turned over sort of eight billion dollars last year. And for them to come all the way down to to a a 10 billion a 10 million pound, uh 10 million dollars, actually about six million pound valued company. They've looked at what we're doing, they've done their due diligence, they like what they're seeing, they like the timelines, and traxis have come to us and and we're working very closely together. We've got a letter of interest on the on the Winston site, and um we would like to scale that up with traxis and working directly with them over the coming weeks and months, and and because the interest is very real and it validates what we're doing to the industry and to the investor network, and um it's probably the most significant announcement the company's ever made because the access that gives us to the capital markets and to to take this all the way from where it sits today through to production.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

I mean, obviously, uh as you say, getting Traxxas involved a company of that stature, uh, very, very positive. Uh, in addition to a potential offtake with them, are you looking at Traxxis as a potential source of finance to help with the CapEx as and when you're building the plant?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

I think uh to at this point the best thing to say is we're looking, we're we're working closely with Traxis on every element of funding and um and we're looking we're looking forward to a to a long and fruitful relationship with Traxi.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Okay, uh to wrap up, Darren, what's one or two things that people of Europe should really be looking out for this year from you?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Outside of what I think Winston will underpin everything we're doing, right? But do not underestimate the potential for district scale success two and a half hours north of Thunder Bay on the Abonga Greenstone Belt. This this is an underexplored greenstone belt. We've already started to throw numbers off it with absolute minimal work. The capital markets have opened up to us, um and that's the blue sky potential within the business. But and you could view, if you so wish, Winston as a as an insurance policy underpinning and actually offering capital growth as well. So it's we're in a beautiful position if you correlate that directly with our with our market cap, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Okay, well, I wish you the best of success there. Uh, once again, Panther Medals trades on the LSE, the London Stock Exchange, under the ticker PALM. Darren Hazelwood, thank you very much for joining me today. Pleasure. And we have a lot more to come from the 2026 Prospectives and Developers Association Conference in Toronto, so stay tuned and hit that subscribe button. I'm Paul Harris, and this is Kiko Mining.