It's been a rough week for most ASX shareholders.
But for those who hold stock in Ora Banda Mining Ltd (ASX: OBM), the blow was likely eased to some extent, with the company's share price gaining almost 10% over the past 5 days.
The Ora Banda share price skyrocketed on Thursday as the gold explorer announced it had intersected two high-grade lodes, or mineral veins, 400 metres below the surface at its Little Gem site in Western Australia.
Ora Banda is the owner of the Davyhurst Gold Project in the eastern goldfields region of Western Australia, about 120 km north-west of Kalgoorlie, where it also operates a 1.2 Mtpa processing hub.
The gold explorer and developer has stated that its tenements are also highly prospective for nickel, copper, and lithium.
And investors like what they're seeing from Ora Banda.
The company's share price has gained more than 300% over the past year.
Ora Banda's Managing Director, Luke Creagh, said:
These latest discovery intercepts at Little Gem are landmark because they open our eyes to a new 4.7km long target zone that runs all the way from Sunraysia to British Lion.
To put this into context, this is more than double the current strike length of the known Riverina orebody.
Consequently, we've committed to a priority 16-hole starter drill program which will test the carbonate horizons along the 4.7 kilometre strike and down to a depth of 400 metres.
Image source: Getty Images
Golden results
Ora Banda released its half-year results in late February, showing record revenues of $186.4 million, almost double the previous half's figure.
As a result, the company stated that net profit after tax had increased 371% to $50.8 million, and the miner ended the half with cash totalling $57.8 million, up $31.0 million from the previous half.
The rise in profits came as the company increased gold sales on the previous half by 15,668 ounces, or 48%, to come in at 47,824 ounces.
Ora Banda also benefited from a higher realised gold price, up $902 an ounce on the prior comparative period.
Ora Banda's market cap is now sitting at $2 billion, with shares changing hands for around 27x earnings.
Still, with Ora Banda's current share price of $1.07, it remains a long way from the highs it was achieving 20 years ago when it was edging close to $9 a share.
