Santana Minerals Ltd (ASX: SMI) is not a household name amongst ASX mining stocks.
But the aspiring gold producer is starting to turn heads thanks to its Bendigo-Ophir gold project in New Zealand.
In essence, the project hosts a resource base containing more than 2.3 million ounces of gold scattered across four deposits.
However, the jewel in the crown is the flagship Rise and Shine (RAS) deposit with nearly 2.1 million ounces of gold.
Santana plans to build a mine Rise and Shine and become a significant ASX gold producer.
The ASX mining stock has already outlined a robust economic profile for a potential gold mine.
Here, an economic evaluation envisaged 1.25 million ounces of total gold sales from an initial mine life of 13.8 years.
However, today's "exceptional" drilling results from Rise and Shine could give the project another shot in the arm.
What happened?
The ASX mining stock has been conducting drilling to test for northern extensions of Rise and Shine.
And today's results returned "outstanding" high-grade intercepts, confirming the continuation of the high-grade core of the deposit known as the HG1 domain.
Notably, one hole named MDD487 returned a "bonanza" result of 8.7 metres grading 30.6 grams per tonne gold.
This intercept ranks amongst the top ten holes drilled to date at Rise and Shine. It includes consistent grades above 15g/t gold, with two assays exceeding 100g/t gold.
Management noted that this intercept highlights the strength of the HG1 domain when compared with the broader mineralised system.
Other significant hits from the drilling include 27.6m at 3.5g/t gold and 12.6m at 4.2g/t gold.
Management believes these results point to the potential for a larger underground operation than previously envisaged.
Santana Minerals chief executive officer, Damian Spring, commented:
Today's results reinforce the continuity of high-grade mineralisation within the HG1 zone. The MDD487 interval returned a pre-top-cut grade of 40.2g/t, highlighting the strength of the system even before standard capping is applied. Intervals of this calibre, repeatedly observed across RAS, continue to strengthen our confidence in the geological model and the consistency of the high-grade domains.
Share price in focus
Despite the upbeat news, shares in the ASX mining stock have seen little movement in today's session.
More specifically, its shares are changing hands at $0.81 each at the time of writing, down by 0.6% from yesterday's close.
That said, Santana investors have enjoyed a fruitful year in 2025, with the company's shares rocketing by 76% since the start of January.
This performance has far outpaced the broader market, with the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) up by 5% during the same period.
