Join our daily newsletter At The Bell to receive exclusive market insights
- Ora Banda Mining has announced an increased open pit mining reserve at its Siberia Project
- The new reserve of 210,000 ounces of gold has increased by 42 per cent
- The company has now begun all the required approvals for the Siberia Project which were first granted in 2017
- Ora Banda’s share price is remaining steady with shares trading for 18 cents each
Ora Banda Mining has announced an increased open pit mining reserve at its Siberia Project in Western Australia.
The new mining reserve now sits at 210,000 ounces of gold, up from the previous 150,000 ounces of gold. This represents a 42 per cent increase in the open pit mining reserve at Siberia.
The Siberia prospect is located approximately 39 kilometres south-east of Ora Banda’s 1.2 million tpa (tonnes per annum) processing plant at Davyhurst and 80 kilometres north-west of Kalgoorlie.
Independent mining consultancy firm Entech Limited was hired to undertake a full optimisation and design review of Ora Banda’s existing Sand King and Missouri open pits at Siberia.
The optimisation study incorporated the current capital and operating cost estimates for small to medium open pit gold mines, and a base case gold price of $2000 per ounce.
The optimisation and redesign review processes completed resulted in a combined open pit mining reserve esteem for the Missouri and Sand King deposits of 2.8 million tonnes at a grade of 2.3g/t gold for 210,000 ounces of gold.
Importantly, the reserve grade held steady over the 2017 reserve estimate of 2 million tonnes at 2.3g/t gold for 150,000 ounces.
“The delivery of this updated reserve statement is an essential step in the progression of the DFS (definitive feasibility study),” Managing Director David Quinlivan said.
“The increase in reserve is pleasing and augurs well for the integration of these open pits into the larger project scale mining proposition,” he added.
Work has now begun on updating all the necessary statutory approvals for the Siberia Project which were initially granted in 2017.
Mine evaluation work investing the underground potential of the Missouri and Sand King deposits has also begun.
Ora Banda’s share price is steady today with shares trading for 18 cents apiece at 11:26 am AEDT.
