St Barbara Ltd (ASX: SBM) shares are rising strongly again on Wednesday.

In morning trade, the ASX gold mining stock is up 15% to 26.5 cents.

This means that its shares are now up approximately 40% since this time last week.

Hot on the heels of a solid production update at the end of last week, St Barbara has given its shareholders another reason to smile today with the release of a promising drilling update.

According to the release, all assay results have now been returned for the resource definition drilling of the Sorowar – Pigiput Trend portion of the 24 hole, 4,700 metre diamond drill program at the Simberi Operations in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

This means that assays results have now been received for all 15 of the resource definition diamond drill holes that will be incorporated in the upcoming mineral resource and ore reserve update in the fourth quarter.

Promisingly, the company highlights that exploration hole SDH542 intersected mineralisation between 80m and 165m similar to that observed in holes SDH525, 533 and 534, that all returned significant intercepts.

The ASX mining stock's managing director and CEO, Andrew Strelein, also highlights encouraging results from hole SDH531. He said:

Hole SDH531 included 56 metres at 2.9 g/t Au from just 103 metres including 28 metres at 4.7 g/t Au. It is another broad intercept in the new mineralisation zone between Sorowar and Pigiput pits, but outside any current Mineral Resource.

Hole SDH533, located in the valley and the southeasternmost of the holes drilled so far, has only recently been accessible for drilling after oxide mining progress in Sorowar pit and included 45 metres at 2.2 g/t Au from surface.

Strelein also notes that with the gold price at record levels, new areas of the operation are now looking like attractive targets. He said:

This is the first sulphide focused diamond drilling program at Simberi since 2011, apart from an RC drill program conducted at Sorowar only in 2019. We are very encouraged by the results so far.

The gold price for Ore Reserve definition back in 2012 was just A$1,250 per ounce and many areas were unable to be drilled at that time because of difficult topography.

We are getting positive results by applying more than 10 years of improvement in geological knowledge and targeting insufficiently drilled areas from drill pad locations now available because of more than 10 years of oxide mining.

Overall, recent developments appear to indicate that things are looking up for this ASX mining stock.