Round Dam has delivered for Ora Banda Mining, with the discovery of a new gold system prompting the potential for a large-scale surface mining opportunity.

This is enhanced by the additional identification of up to six subparallel continuous gold lodes along the trend, resulting in new search windows previously unrecognised in historical drilling.

Significant intercepts demonstrating the potential for high-grade ore shoot development within a broader mineralised corridor include one from 14 metres at 18.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, as well as 12 metres at 21.5g/t.

Other hits were:

Round Dam mine in Western Australia (WA) is an 18-kilometre-long north-south striking mineralised trend, running from Waihi in the north (3.5 kilometres from Davyhurst mill) to Salmon Gums in the south.

The site’s phase 1 drilling program totals 330 holes or 62,000 metres, involving two dedicated reverse circulation (RC) rigs and one diamond drilling rig, with 281 holes on roughly 53,000 metres drilled to date.

Of this, approximately 4000 diamond metres have been completed, as well as 49,000 RC metres.

Ora Banda managing director Luke Creagh said while the company is looking at large-scale surface mining opportunities, the discoveries are exciting considering the project is only 15 kilometres from its Davyhurst processing infrastructure.

“These Round Dam results are another highlight in the company’s ongoing $73 million 2026 financial year (FY26) exploration strategy,” he said.

“This is to target projects with the potential to become mines in short order, supporting the company’s organic growth strategy.”

Further significant intercepts demonstrating bulk tonnage opportunity include:

Ora Banda added that not only has the potential for high-grade shoot development been identified, but there are also multiple other under-explored areas that have “flexures” in the geology.

These have identified the potential for plunging high-grade shoot development and are being targeted and drilled in order of priority.

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