Ora Banda Mining has made a new gold discovery – along with another set of blockbuster results from deep drilling at its Riverina mine in Western Australia. The results will also extend the deposit’s mine life.
The company’s depth extension drilling program has continued to intersect high-grade gold for more than 300 metres below its current mine plan, further extending the life of mine at its ever-refining Davyhurst operation.
Adding to Ora Banda’s excitement, a potential greenfields discovery at its Little Gem prospect, 2.5 kilometres south of Riverina, delivered highly encouraging first-pass results. A 4.6m hit at a juicy 7.6 grams per tonne (g/t), 5.3m at 3.3g/t and 4.4m at 3.4g/t gold were all returned from the same hole at around 250m downhole, suggesting a new multi-lode potential standalone discovery.
The results stirred Ora Banda’s board into action to sign off on a major funding boost for 2025 by way of a $45 million resource expansion investment that set out some $16m for exploration and resource drilling and a further $29m to fast-track mine expansion.
The additional $45m will boost exploration and resource drilling total spend for 2025 to $41m. With the $29m in capital expenditure to support growth at Riverina and Sand King, including $10m for camp expansions, $10m for mine development and $9m for ancillary projects.
The depth of the latest drilling program at Riverina reveals just how vast the system is becoming. A high-grade shoot about 600m below the current workings returned exceptional grades including a 2.9m hit at a bonanza 36.0g/t gold, a thicker 7.8m section running 9.7g/t and 4m at an impressive 14.2g/t.
The drilling campaign is only 50 per cent complete and has already extended the project’s known gold mineralisation to more than 1km in depth – a big tick for the company as it continues its production mission to deliver 150,000 ounces of gold this financial year.
Ora Banda Mining managing director Luke Creagh said: “The significant results flowing from deeper drilling at Riverina Underground are nothing short of remarkable and point to a future step change for the business as we can now see through to a multi-year expansion in mine life.”
While Riverina continues to set records and the company’s Davyhurst mill churns out more tonnes than ever, Ora Banda’s Little Gem prospect could also soon shape up as a potential standalone deposit in its own right.
Ora Banda believes its results from Little Gem confirm what management has long suspected - that the Riverina gold system extends well beyond its current boundaries.
Importantly, the host rocks for the multiple lodes intersected in hole one have been identified as the metasediment units that form part of the hanging wall sequence in the Riverina Underground. This indicates the main lode hosting the high-grade Riverina lode sits immediately west of the current hole and is yet to be intersected.
Ora Banda has drilled four additional holes at Little Gem, with assays still pending. The company is also planning to run further step-out drilling to define the full extent of its potential new discovery.
Ora Banda is well on its way to achieving its target of 150,000 ounces of gold for the year, with a pipeline of high-grade ore sources now taking over as feed ore into its 1.2 million tonne per annum Davyhurst mill.
With record gold prices at $4,630 per ounce and expected record production for Davyhurst this quarter, the discovery of yet more gold and an extended mine life for Ora Banda only adds to the company’s continued ascendancy. The nearly multi-billion-dollar company now looks primed to crack the $1 per share mark for the first time in its rollercoaster history.
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By Andrew Todd
