Exploration underway at the Siberia project is targeting the underground potential at the Missouri and Sand King open pits. Pic via Getty Images.
Mining
Ora Banda Mining’s Phase 2 drilling program at its Riverina gold mine in WA has confirmed southern and depth extensions well beyond the current underground mineral resource boundary.
Riverina, around 44km from the Davyhurst processing plant, has a 2025 production target for 100,000 ounces per annum (ozpa), which is currently underpinned by an upgraded ore reserve of 73,000oz at 4.3g/t.
New notable intercepts include:
In addition, Ora Banda’s (ASX:OBM) drilling under the British Lion deposit targeting southern extensions has confirmed high-grade mineralisation of the Main Lode for an additional 700m strike south of Final Investment Decision (FID) inventory.
Those results included:
Drilling to date confirms the high-grade Main Lode extends over 1.5km strike, more than 500m deep and remains open in all directions – substantially expanding the exploration window.
OBM MD Luke Creagh noted that the 700m strike extension would support an additional decline corridor and potential production growth.
“The results from the extensional drilling at Riverina continue to expand the high-grade mineralisation corridor, which has now been proven and expanded to over 1.5 kilometres of strike and over 500 metres deep,” he said.
“The exciting part is the drilling is not only improving the size of the system, but also demonstrating that good widths and high grades go well beyond our current resource with intercepts of 4 metres at 9.8 grams per tonne to the south, and 6 metres at 17.1 grams per tonne at depth.
“We still consider this very early days in exploring Riverina, and these impressive results support our expectation that Riverina could be a very big system with the potential to support both mine life extension and production growth as we continue to explore.”
The company’s exploration program at the Siberia project is targeting the underground potential at the Missouri and Sand King open pits – which are both being mined in FY24.
An eight-hole exploration drilling program on Missouri Deeps has commenced, to test a strike extent of approximately 750m, and down to over 250m below the open pit and following up on the previously announced 2m at 7.0g/t ~200m below the planned final pit floor.
The first hole included 2m at 4.4g/t, confirming structural setting and mineralisation consistent with current open pit mining which is averaging over 1,750oz per vertical metre (OPVM).
At Sand King, exploration holes are planned to target high grade extensions at depth, following up previous drilling results of 4m at 17.0g/t, 6.1m at 13.1g/t and 5m at 13.7g/t.
“A key value driver for the business is commencing a second high-grade underground, and our next exploration program is targeting underground potential at our current mining area of Missouri and Sand King,” Creagh said.
“The phase 1 program is testing the down dip extension of the Missouri open pit that is averaging up to 2,000 ounces per vertical metre, as well as the continuity of the high-grade lodes of Sand King at depth.”
This article was developed in collaboration with Ora Banda Mining Limited, 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.
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