The All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 0.1% today, but ASX All Ords gold stock St Barbara Ltd (ASX: SBM) is marching higher.
St Barbara shares closed yesterday trading for 28.0 cents. In morning trade on Friday, shares are changing hands for 28.5 cents apiece, up 1.7%.
Here's what's happening.
ASX All Ords gold stock strikes some promising zones
Investors are running their slide rules over the ASX All Ords gold stock following the release of a promising exploration update from its Simberi Operations, located in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
St Barbara has completed its exploration and sterilisation drill program at Simberi, comprising 61 holes for 10,463 metres.
Today, the company reported on assay results from the latest 11 drill holes. Assay results remain pending for a further 20 diamond drill holes from the program.
St Barbara said that the Samat deposit, within Simberi, has previously seen only sparse historical diamond drilling for sulphides.
The high-grade gold mineralisation the ASX All Ords gold stock intersected is immediately below the existing Samat open pit sulphide ore reserve, which the miner said is just beyond the reach of historical oxide RC (reverse circulation) grade control.
Two resource definition drill holes completed at the Samat deposit intersected significant high-grade gold mineralisation, including:
- 17 m at 4.2 g/t Au [grams of gold per tonne] from 53 m, including 6 m at 6.4 g/t Au from 56 m
- 43 m at 2.1 g/t Au from 17 m and 27 m at 1.7 g/t Au from 91 m
Atop the Samat deposit, St Barbara reported that it also intersected further high-grade gold mineralisation in its resource definition and exploration diamond drilling at the Sorowar – Pigiput Trend.
What did management say?
Commenting on the exploration results that look to be giving the ASX All Ords gold stock a boost today, St Barbara CEO Andrew Strelein said: "The identification of additional sulphide mineralisation extending or located immediately below the current sulphide open pit Ore Reserve at Samat and Sorowar – Pigiput Trend is very positive news."
Strelein added:
We are looking forward to the results of the remaining ten Samat drill holes to better understand the potential to define additional high-grade sulphide resources where historic diamond drilling is relatively sparse. Significantly, Samat was the first and highest grade of the oxide pits mined.
He said that St Barbara expects to receive the assay results for most of the remaining 20 resource definition, exploration, and sterilisation holes drilled to date at Samat, Pigicow-Botlu, Pigibo North, Pigibo Botlu, and Pigiput Northeast Trend in the September quarter.
Despite some recent weather-related setbacks, shares in the ASX All Ords gold stock are up 30% since this time last year.
