After a challenging start-up of the Davyhurst gold operation in the Eastern Goldfields, Ora Banda Mining is showing signs of positive progress.
Davyhurst has resources of 2 million ounces at 2.7 grams per tonne gold and reserves of 470,000oz at 2.4gpt gold across six deposits.
Riverina and Missouri are currently in production, with pre-stripping of the Sand King mine underway.
Ora Banda experienced production throughput issues last year but appears to have turned the corner.
The December quarter was the company's best quarter yet. Davyhurst produced 17,192oz in the quarter, up about 20% from the September quarter.
The 1.2 million tonne per annum mill achieved consistent throughput rates of about 90,000 tonnes per month.
January throughput reached 92,000t per month, while production was 5185oz.
It takes the company one step closer towards nameplate capacity of 100,000t per month.
Guidance for the 2022 financial year is 62,000-68,000oz of gold.
As momentum builds, debt-free Ora Banda last week launched a A$20 million capital raising, joint lead managed by Euroz Hartleys and amicaa Adivisors and supported by major US shareholder, Hawke's Point Holdings.
The company reported strong demand for the institutional component, with roughly 84% of entitlements taken up.
The entitlement offer, which is being fully underwritten by Euroz Hartleys and Fresh Underwriters, will raise an additional $7.3 million.
As well as further operational improvements, the raising will also fund resource extension drilling and district-scale exploration across Ora Banda's 1210sq.km of ground.
Twelve major mineralised trends have been identified and the ground contains over 200 known gold occurrences and prospects.
Resource drilling on Lady Ida and Riverina Deeps is being prioritised.
Lady Ida's Iguana deposit has a resource of 175,000oz at 2gpt, which the company believes has the potential to improve mine scheduling.
On the grassroots front, Ora Banda has already seen positive results from first-pass drilling at Greater Pacific, Sunraysia North and Kangaroo.
Greater Pacific returned 4m at 2.64gpt from surface, Sunraysia North returned 4m at 3.8gpt gold from 56m and 20m at 1.2gpt from 64m; and Kangaroo returned 12m at 0.6gpt gold from 36m.
Further work at Greater Pacific, as well as the Victoria workings and Sky prospect are near-term priorities.
Ora Banda has also identified lithium mineralisation within its tenements during gold exploration.
Abundant unclassified pegmatite have been observed over extensive areas in outcrop and drilling, where about 1130 pegmatite occurrences appear in Ora Banda's database.
Preliminary sampling at the Golden Horn prospect at Riverina returned up to 1.24% lithium oxide.
