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Great Panther Mining

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Great Panther Mining Limited
FormerlyGreat Panther Silver; Lodestar Mines Ltd.
Company typePublic
OTC Pink: GPLDF
IndustryMining
Founded1965
HeadquartersVancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Key people
Robert Archer (CEO, 2005-17); James Bannantine (CEO, 2017-19); Jeffrey Mason (Interim CEO 2020); Rob Henderson (CEO, 2020-22); Alan Hair (Interim CEO 2022); Sandra Daycock (2022)

Great Panther Mining Limited (formerly Great Panther Silver) is a Canadian company, headquartered in Vancouver, that owns and operates a gold mine in Brazil. The company became a metal producer and listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2006 after a restructuring in which Robert Archer took over as Chief Executive Officer and acquired and returned several dormant silver-gold mines in Mexico back into production. In 2015 the company merged with TSXV-listed Cangold which was attempting to develop its own gold-silver mine in Mexico. In early 2019, the company acquired ASX-listed Beadell Resources for its Tucano Gold Mine in Brazil. In 2020, the Company announced its inaugural Mineral Resource & Mineral Reserve for the Tucano gold mine in which a 51% reduction of mineral resources was reported. In 2022 the company went bankrupt despite selling its Mexican mines.

History

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The company that would become Great Panther Mining was founded in 1965 as a private company called Lodestar Mines Ltd, prospecting emeralds in Zimbabwe. It became a public company, as Lodestar Energy Inc, with its initial public offering on June 18, 1980, on the Vancouver Stock Exchange. It underwent several name changes, mergers and acquisitions and pursued several business interests throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including oil and gas development in Oklahoma,[1] agriculture as Controlled Environmental Farming International Ltd, baby bassinets as New Age Ventures[2][3] and oil again, this time in California and Thailand, as Great Panther Inc.[4]

The company re-organized again in 2003-04 to become Great Panther Resources Limited, with a new CEO, Robert Archer and Francisco Ramos to pursue the development of various mineral rights in Mexico. Among other interests, it acquired the Guanajuato Mine Complex and the Mexican mining company Minera Mexicana el Rosario SA de CV for its dormant Topia Mine. They brought those former mines back into production[5] so that in 2006 they produced 730 tonnes of zinc, 616 tonnes lead, 313,484 oz of silver and 1,394 oz of gold. With this production, in November 2006, the company's stock graduated to the Toronto Stock Exchange from the TSX Venture Exchange. In 2010, when the company changed its name to Great Panther Silver they produced 1,534,957 oz of silver along with over a thousand tonnes of both zinc and lead and, subsequently, in 2011, their stock became cross-listed on the NYSE Amex Equities Exchange.[6] While the Topia and Guanajuato mines would remain their only operating mines until 2019, they pursued other mineral interests, such as the El Horcon silver-gold project in Jalisco, Mexico[7] and the Coricancha gold-silver project in Peru.[8] In 2015, Great Panther Silver purchased TSXV-listed Cangold for its the Guadalupe de los Reyes gold-silver project in Sinaloa, Mexico, in an all-share deal worth $1.7 million.[9] The company has been challenged with several deaths at its mine sites. In 2014 a trespasser was killed by guards,[10][11] in 2016 a worker was killed while operating an underground loader, both at the Guanajuato complex,[12] and in 2019 two more workers were killed in work place accidents.[13][14]

The company added a third mine to their operations with the 2019 acquisition of Australian Securities Exchange-listed Beadell Resources Limited for their Tucano gold mine in Brazil. The all-stock deal, valued at $105 million, gave Beadell shareholders 38% of the combined company.[15] With mining of gold and other metals making up more of their operations, the company changed its name from Great Panther Silver to Great Panther Mining. Great Panther announced its inaugural Mineral Resource & Mineral Reserve shortly after the acquisition of the Tucano gold mine, in which a massive 51% reduction of mineral resources was reported. Following these developments, in 2020, the Company hired a new CEO, Rob Henderson, and replaced much of its board of directors.[16] In late-2021, the Tucano Mine was fined US$9 million by the Brazilian Environmental Agency for an alleged cyanide pollution incident.[17] In 2022 Great Panther sold its Mexican assets to the TSX-V-listed Guanajuato Silver Company Ltd for US$8,000,000 plus shares in the company,[18] and its Peruvian assets to the TSX-V-listed Newrange Gold for US$750,000.[19] The company filed for bankruptcy in September 2022 and it was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange.[20]

Operations

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In addition to exploration properties in Mexico and Canada, and its ownership of the Coricancha Mine Complex (on care and maintenance since 2013) in Peru, Great Panther owned and operated three operating mines:[21]

  • The Tucano Mine in Amapá, Brazil, is an open pit mine producing gold doré bars. It was acquired by Great Panther with its 2019 merger with Beadell Resources Limited. The Tucano Mine tenement portfolio comprises 197,283 ha, 100% controlled by Great Panther. This large land package in one of the most interesting areas in the world for gold exploration covers approximately a 90 kilometres long section of the Vila Nova Greenstone Belt, centered around the Tucano Mining License.
  • The Topia Mine in Durango, Mexico, in an underground mine that produces metallic concentrates containing silver, gold, lead and zinc. It was acquired in 2005 as a facility on care and maintenance and recommissioned by Great Panther[22] and sold it in 2022 to Guanajuato Silver Company Ltd.
  • The Guanajuato Mine complex near the city of Guanajuato, Mexico, includes the Guanajuato and the San Ignacio mines and the centralized Cata processing plant. While it has been subject to mining activities since the 1930s, it was acquired by Great Panther in 2005 and further developed as an underground mine to produce silver and gold concentrate material.[22] It was sold in 2022 to Guanajuato Silver Company Ltd.

References

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  1. ^ "Lodestar buys Texas firm". The Province. Vancouver, British Columbia. October 7, 1980. p. 22.
  2. ^ "Business in Brief". Calgary Herald. May 18, 1989. p. F2.
  3. ^ Hope, Marty (November 13, 1991). "High dollar no barrier to exporters - Andre". Calgary Herald. p. D9.
  4. ^ "Great Panther buys interest". Vancouver Sun. May 7, 2002. p. D2.
  5. ^ Hasselback, Drew (March 7, 2006). "Silver gains new respect with mining crowd". National Post. p. FP1.
  6. ^ "Great Panther Silver Reports Annual Net Profit of $5 Million". Glacier Media. March 16, 2011.
  7. ^ Jamasmie, Cecilia (September 5, 2012). "Great Panther Silver acquires El Horcon silver-gold project in Mexico". Glacier Media.
  8. ^ Stokes, Lesley (January 5, 2017). "Great Panther to buy Coricancha from Nyrstar". The Northern Miner. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  9. ^ Tarikh, Salma (March 4, 2015). "Great Panther to snatch Cangold for $1.7M". The Northern Miner. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  10. ^ Bickis, Ian (April 19, 2015). "Canadian miners grapple with security risks in Mexico". Global News. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  11. ^ "Vancouver firm says illegal miner killed at Mexican mine". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The Canadian Press. Retrieved January 22, 2018.
  12. ^ "B.C. mining firm probes death". Montreal Gazette. February 16, 2016. p. B2.
  13. ^ "Fatality at Great Panther's San Ignacio". Mining Journal. November 11, 2019.
  14. ^ "Great Panther reports second fatality in 9 days". Mining Journal. November 19, 2019.
  15. ^ "Great Panther makes progress with US$105M Beadell buy". Mining Journal. December 2, 2018.
  16. ^ "Great Panther rejuvenates board, management". Mining Journal. April 21, 2020.
  17. ^ Ruiz Leotaud, Valentina (December 30, 2021). "Great Panther fined $9m by Brazilian environmental agency for cyanide pollution". Glacier Media.
  18. ^ "Great Panther Completes Sale of the Guanajuato Mine Complex and Topia Mine in Mexico" (Press release). CNW Group. August 4, 2022.
  19. ^ Basov, Vladimir (October 26, 2022). "Great Panther to sell its Coricancha mine in Peru to Newrange Gold". kitco.com.
  20. ^ Jamasmie, Cecilia (September 7, 2022). "Great Panther to delist from TSX, NYSE as it seeks creditor protection". Glacier Media.
  21. ^ "'It's a great time to be in the industry': Great Panther Mining focuses on stability, growth". Northern Miner. September 30, 2020.
  22. ^ a b Mills, Richard (October 8, 2010). "Great Panther Silver". Glacier Media.
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