Ora Banda Mining extends Riverina Underground with bonanza gold; paves way for added mine life
Last updated: 17:20 12 Feb 2025 EST, First published: 17:17 12 Feb 2025 EST
Ora Banda Mining Ltd is setting the foundations to extend the mine life of the Riverina Gold Camp in Western Australia, leveraging deep drilling at the Riverina Underground Mine to extend mineralisation a further 300 metres below the current mine plan.
Extensional drilling has also extended mineralisation in the central area while the company’s greenfields drilling has unearthed the Little Gem discovery 2.5 kilometres along strike from the mine.
The drilling overall has produced high gold grades with deep drilling hitting 2.9 metres at 36 g/t gold and 2.9 metres at 18.9 g/t gold, extensional drilling grading up to 1.5 metres at 62.3 g/t gold and Little Gem producing up to 4.6 metres at 7.4 g/t gold so far.
“Remarkable” drilling results
"The significant results that are 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,” Ora Banda Mining managing director Luke Creagh said.
"Equally as exciting has been the first hole, a potential greenfields discovery, at Little Gem.
“The tenor of Little Gem's mineralisation and its multi-lode structure exemplifies the highly prospective nature of the Riverina trend. We will be following up the discovery hole and other prospects to the south as a priority.
“With the potential value creation that extending and expanding Riverina presents, the additional exploration and capital spend approved by the Board sets Ora Banda on the path of rapidly realising further value from the drill bit.”
Little Gem’s discovery hole hit three different parallel lodes of gold, with results OBM describes as solid grade and width.
The board has approved a further $16 million in exploration and resource development for the Riverina Gold Camp, and $29 million to rapidly advance drilling and expand the infrastructure on the project.
