The Panoramic Resources Ltd (ASX: PAN) share price has taken off over the past month, up almost 42%.
In today's session, the small-cap nickel and gold explorer once again closed higher, up 6.25% to 25.5 cents.
The company's wild run of late includes two separate share price spikes over the past four weeks.
Let's examine.
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What's pushing the Panoramic Resources share price?
The first share price surge occurred on 1 August. That's when Panoramic Resources reported further positive drilling results at its Savannah Nickel Project in Western Australia.
The company reported "mineralisation thicknesses continue to be significantly better than predicted".
In its statement, the company said:
Results from the first two drill fans above the 900 Fault have the potential to significantly increase the Savannah Mineral Resource in this area of the mine and support the development of a second mining front to support mining operations at Savannah North.
On the same day, Panoramic delivered a presentation at the Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum.
Investors bid up the Panoramic Resources share price to 22 cents that day, a 10% gain.
How BHP's offer to buy OZ Minerals helped Panoramic
The biggest news out of the resources space this month is the takeover offer made by BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP) to OZ Minerals Limited (ASX: OZL).
OZ Minerals is a significant player in the copper and nickel segments. BHP offered to buy OZ Minerals for $25 per share, which was a 32% premium on the share price at the time.
BHP is the biggest company on the ASX, with a whopping market cap of $197 billion. To put that into perspective, it single-handedly accounts for 11% of the value of the ASX 200.
When a company of this significance offers a premium price to buy you out, you must have something it seriously wants. And in the case of OZ Minerals, that's copper and nickel.
These two minerals are expected to play a large role in the decarbonisation era, and the takeover attempt reinforced their importance. This had a flow-on effect to many smaller ASX mining shares. It benefitted Panoramic Resources because the company derives most of its revenue from nickel mining activities.
OZ Minerals announced the rejected offer on 8 August, sparking massive media and investor attention.
Since then, the Panoramic Resources share price has ascended 20%.
The future of nickel and electric vehicles
Rising demand for nickel has also helped the Panoramic Resources share price trajectory of late.
The price of the commodity has increased by 6.5% over the past month, according to Trading Economics.
Nickel is now one of the world's most in-demand metals, according to reporting on abc.net.au.
Right now, nickel is primarily used to make stainless steel. But it's also needed in the lithium-ion batteries that make electric vehicles (EVs) run. In fact, those batteries need more nickel than lithium to function.
The article cited a CSIRO report that shows "about five times as much nickel (48,006 kilotonnes) will be needed to meet global demand by 2050 as lithium (8,990 kilotonnes)".
The article quoted Jessica Farrell, who is the president of the BHP Nickel West operations:
If we look out to 2030, we see a 60% increase in electric vehicles and then out to 2040 we see that going up another 30%, to 90%.
So, we see an incredibly good trajectory for demand — and that's globally.
We'll also see that transition locally, I think, a lot faster than we expect.
Panoramic Resources share price snapshot
The Panoramic share price is up 48% over the past 12 months and down 14% year to date.
