WA gold producer Ora Banda Mining has rattled off an impressive slew of high-grade drill intersections from the Iguana satellite gold deposit about 55km south of its flagship Davyhurst gold production hub, 120km north-west of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields. Some of the stand-out gold hits from a “phase one” 27-hole infill and extensional drilling program totalling 3,750m were 2m going at 13.6 grams per tonne gold from 136m, 4m at 7.9 g/t from 68m, 9m at 7.6 g/t from 181m and 4m at 7.6 g/t from 84m.
Other notable assays from Iguana, which the Perth-based company sees as a possible future ore feed source for Davyhurst, included 4m at 6.2 g/t from 38m, 6m at 5.1 g/t from 32m, 11m at 5 g/t from 196m, 30m at 2.2 g/t from 31m, 21m at 3.2 g/t from 69m and 32m at 2 g/t from 35m.
The recently completed phase-one resource definition reverse circulation drilling marked the initial phase of Ora Banda’s planned 69-hole, 10,400m campaign at Iguana.
Phases two and three will entail 500m of diamond core drilling and a further 6,150m of RC drilling.
The company is looking to upgrade the resource category classification and JORC status of the Iguana mineral resource as well as expand it.
Eventually Ora Banda hopes to prove up an ore reserve for Iguana and then mine the former Delta Gold asset to help extend the life of mine at Davyhurst.
Iguana’s inferred and indicated resource currently stands at an estimated 2.72 million tonnes grading an average 2 g/t for 175,000 ounces of contained gold.
Ora Banda’s 1.2 million-tonnes-per-annum-capacity Davyhurst treatment plant is processing ore from the Riverina open-cut mine about 30km to the north and underground ore from Golden Eagle 3.2km from the plant.
The company’s Missouri open-pit mine about 40km south-east of the mill is about to become another ore source.
The global probable ore reserves inventory for six deposits lined up to feed the plant – with the other three being Sand King, Waihi and Callion – comes in at 6.1Mt at an average grade of 2.4 g/t for 460,000 ounces of contained gold.
The company has set its sights on overall gold production of 82,000oz at Davyhurst in the 2021-22 financial year.
Ora Banda Chief Executive Officer Peter Nicholson said: “The strong initial drilling results indicate that our development plans for the Iguana deposit are on the right track. This is a large deposit that has the potential to deliver higher grade ore to our … Davyhurst processing plant. We have more work scheduled at Iguana and remain excited to see what the next round of drilling delivers to allow us to move forward with assessing the potential for material mine life extension via this deposit.”
Iguana lies within Ora Banda’s Lady Ida project, which also takes in the smaller, 24,000oz Lizard deposit.
Management says open-pit mine evaluation work on Iguana is continuing and baseline environmental studies required for statutory mining approvals have commenced.
Past gold mining at Iguana was mainly focused on the deposit’s laterite resource, leaving the primary mineralisation largely intact, according to Ora Banda.
The historical laterite pit yielded 348,500 tonnes of ore that coughed up an average grade of 3.16 g/t for gold production of 35,500oz.
The Lady Ida project area overlies the Ida Fault, a north-south trending deep seated crustal structure juxtaposing batholithic granites of the Southern Cross province to the west against greenstones of the Eastern Goldfields.
It was actively explored by Delta Gold in the 1990s culminating in open-pit mining operations centred on the Iguana, Lizard and Blue Tongue deposits between February 2000 and August 2001. Historical gold production at Lizard totalled about 27,000oz.
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By Matt Birney
