Nickel miner Panoramic Resources fell just short of reaching its production targets for the financial year ended June 30, as the fourth-quarter output from its Lanfranchi operation, in Western Australia, continued to be affected by seismic events that happened in April.

Following two separate seismic events in the vicinity of the Deacon orebody, Panoramic was forced to reduce production at Lanfranchi and to reschedule some of the Deacon production into 2016 financial year.

As a result, the Lanfranchi project delivered 2233t of contained nickel during the quarter, which was down 9% on the previous quarter, and below expectations.

For the full year, the Lanfranchi operation produced 13775t of contained nickel.

However, production from the Savannah operation increased to 2348t, from the 2259t reported in the March quarter. The project produced a record 8726t of contained nickel in the full year.

Group nickel production for the full year reached 19301t of contained nickel which was just below the guidance of between 20000t and 21000t.

Looking ahead, Panoeamic expected production from the Lanfranchi operation to benefit in 2016 from a combination of the depletion of the Deacon ore reserve, the recent discovery of the high-grade Lower Schmitz mineralization and the prevailing low US dollar nickel price.

Panoramic would maximize cash flow from the Deacon and Jury-Metcalfe orebodies during the first half of 2016, while advancing the Lower Schmitz discovery towards production and potentially ramping up during the March quarter.

The company expected the Lower Schmitz mineralization to potentially provide an opportunity for higher-grade, higher-margin results at Lanfranchi.

• [Editor:Juan]