Ora Banda Mining has continued to knock its gold exploration out of the park, unlocking a fresh parallel gold trend at its emerging Little Gem prospect in Western Australia. The new results have stretched the burgeoning system’s footprint to 1500 metres just a day after a monster 1.33-million-ounce resource uplift at its Round Dam trend.
The newest Sapphire trend sits just 200m east of the main Little Gem lode in the north of the company’s Davyhurst project outside Kalgoorlie.
Ora Banda says it stumbled onto the Sapphire discovery whilst conducting step-out drilling on Little Gem, with the new trend already throwing up a string of solid intercepts. Highlights included 18m at 2.7 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and a higher-grade 10.2m hit running 4.2g/t.
Meanwhile, Little Gem has simultaneously ballooned to more than 1500m of strike and down to an impressive 750m below surface, with mineralisation wide open in every direction.
Standout intercepts from recent drilling at the core trend included a 10m hit grading 6.9g/t gold, 6m running at a solid 11.3g/t and a thick 20.1m section grading 2.9g/t.
The company says the continuous results have reinforced the hefty scale of the Little Gem system, which forms part of a north-south mineralised package hosting multiple sub-parallel gold lodes to the south of its flagship Riverina underground mine.
Ora Banda’s Sunraysia prospect, which sits a further 3 kilometres south of Little Gem and along the same corridor, has also stretched its prospective strike by roughly 800metres, with encouraging hits such as 9m at 4.1g/t featuring a 2-metre slice grading 14.5g/t and a 3-metre section running at 9.3g/t gold.
Together, the Little Gem and Sunraysia prospects now anchor a broader 7.5km mineralised corridor running from the producing Riverina down to Sunraysia, with the Sapphire Trend adding a whole new layer of excitement and ounces.
The company has now drilled more than 150 holes across the patch, paving the way for a maiden mineral resource estimate at Little Gem in the second half of this year.
Ora Banda Mining managing director Luke Creagh said: “The work we’ve been doing is a reminder of the enormous organic growth potential of our ground, and as part of this, we very much look forward to delivering a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate for Little Gem in the second half of CY26.”
Ora Banda says the Sapphire Trend had not been specifically identified in the past or properly targeted by any drilling programs, opening the door to serious additional ounces.
The exploration upside piles on top of the company’s massive Round Dam resource upgrade just yesterday, which catapulted that deposit’s inventory tenfold to 1.33 million ounces and swelled the project’s global resource to 3.3 million ounces.
With a $73 million exploration budget rolling out across the broader Davyhurst project, Ora Banda is clearly ramping up the hunt for more gold in this proven corridor.
The company says it remains on track for its 150,000-ounce production guidance from the high-grade underground mines at Sand King and Riverina. Meanwhile, it is crunching the numbers on a potential 3-million-tonne-per-annum processing facility to keep pace with its ever-expanding gold inventory.
As the drill rigs keep delivering at Little Gem, Sapphire and beyond, Ora Banda is steadily stacking up the ounces to fuel a bigger production profile and a longer mine life at what is fast becoming one of Australia’s most exciting gold projects.
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By Andrew Todd
