Ora Banda Mining’s +100,000ozpa goal is closer to reality as ramp up of Riverina underground continues on schedule

Ora Banda Mining is on track to start mining underground stoping ore at Riverina
Development is ramping up with January advance rates up 97% over the average rate for the previous six months
Riverina is key to achieving the goal of +100,000ozpa gold production in FY 2025
Underground drilling continues to define and extend Riverina mineralisation

Special Report: Development of Ora Banda Mining’s Riverina underground operation is progressing as planned with all capital projects now complete and first stoping ore scheduled to be mined in March.

Underground mining at Riverina is central to the company’s ‘DRIVE to 100’ strategy of delivering +100,000oz per annum production in FY2025.

Ora Banda Mining (ASX:OBM) has been producing gold from its broader Davyhurst project since Q1 2021 with company forecasting FY2024 sales at 67,000-73,000oz, up significantly from the previous year due to reduced stripping ratios at Missouri and the expected introduction of higher-grade Riverina underground ore.

All-in sustaining costs are also expected to drop by 25% to $2,200-2,400/oz, though the company aims to reduce this to below $1,950/oz under its development strategy.

Riverina has a resource of 330,000oz that remains open in all directions and a maiden ore reserve of 73,000oz that could be increased by further drilling.

It is expected to deliver steady-state output of 600,000tpa – at a reserve grade of 4.3g/t gold – to produce ~80,000ozpa of the precious metal.

Ramp-up on schedule

OBM notes that development of Riverina underground is ramping up as additional levels are accessed with January’s advance rate of 575m being a 97% increase over the July-December average of 292m.

Confidence in the ability of Riverina to deliver the forecast grades is high as first batch samples of development ore put through the processing plant returned 16,727t @ 2.74g/t with 93.9% recovery, resulting in 1,383oz of gold being produced.

This reconciliation was 4% above the mine call grade, and ~16% higher than the designed block model grade.

When stoping begins, OBM forecasts the grade to be double the development grade due to the stoping width of 2.2m compared to 4.5m in development.

Should commercial production in the June quarter meet its key metrics of 650m per month development, 30,000t per month stoping ore and 50,000t per month of total ore at a reserve grade of 4.3g/t gold, it will mark a significant inflection point for the company as it pivots from lower grade open pit ore to the high-grade underground ore as the primary mill feed.

Drilling continues

OBM is also progressing underground diamond drilling with 7,379m of in-fill and extension drilling completed since late November.

This returned notable results such as 3m @ 20.1g/t gold, 2.4m @ 21.7g/t gold and 1.2m @ 36.6g/t gold.

“The team at Riverina, both Ora Banda and Byrnecut, have been doing an outstanding job to progress the ramp up of Riverina. We now have all capital projects complete with ore development continuing and first stopes expected to be mined in March,” OBM managing director Luke Creagh said.

“The diamond drilling from the underground rig continues to define and extend the mineralisation at Riverina and further supports our view that this is very early days in unlocking a big mineralised and high-grade system.

“We remain on schedule to achieve commercial production in the June quarter, and this will mark a significant inflection point for the company as it pivots away from a low grade, open pit operation to a high-grade underground operation as the primary mill feed resulting in increased production at lower costs.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Ora Banda Mining, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.