S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) gold stock Ora Banda Mining Ltd (ASX: OBM) is surging higher today.
Ora Banda shares closed yesterday trading for $1.165. In early morning trade on Wednesday, shares are changing hands for $1.325 apiece, up 13.7%.
For some context, the ASX 200 is up 0.4% at this same time.
This outperformance follows the release of a promising update on the miner's Round Dam gold deposit, located in Western Australia.
Here's what's grabbing investor interest.
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ASX 200 gold stock surges on Mineral Resource upgrade
The Ora Banda Mining share price is surging today after the miner reported a massive 964% Mineral Resource increase at Round Dam.
On the heels of the first phase of Ora Banda's FY 2026 growth program, which includes results of drilling up to the end of January, the ASX 200 gold stock revealed a new Mineral Resource of 25.6Mt at 1.6g/t [25.6 million tonnes at 1.6 grams of gold per tonne] for 1.330 million ounces.
That's up from the previous resource at Round Dam of 125,000 ounces.
The new estimate includes 7.1Mt at 1.8g/t for 408,000 ounces in the Indicated category and 18.2Mt at 1.6g/t in the Inferred category.
With the new resource update, Ora Banda's total global resource position has increased by 57% to 3.3 million ounces.
And the ASX 200 gold stock said that exploration along the Round Dam trend is still considered to be at an early stage.
Ora Banda expects to provide further resource updates for other deposits in mid-2026. The company has budgeted $73 million for exploration in FY 2026.
The miner considered all of the Round Dam Resource to be suitable for open-pit mining.
What did management say?
Commenting on the Mineral Resource upgrade lifting the ASX 200 gold stock today, Ora Banda managing director Luke Creagh said, "This fantastic result is testimony to the expertise and hard work of our exploration and resource development teams who continue to deliver outstanding results with our $73 million FY26 exploration budget."
Creagh added:
There is no doubt of the scale of the Round Dam system noting there is significant potential to find more mineralization along strike and at depth, supporting our belief in the ability to deliver rapid resource upgrades through our ongoing organic growth programs.
We are incredibly excited by the potential of Round Dam to become a substantial mining operation, as the company continues to advance its study work into the construction of a standalone ~3mtpa processing facility at Davyhurst.
