Drilling reveals new zone at Omai Gold’s project in Guyana

Recent high-grade drill results at Omai Gold Mines’ (TSXV: OMG) namesake project in Guyana point to the potential for expanding the Wenot target east beyond the historical pit area.

Highlight hole 25ODD-142 at East Wenot cut 14.7 metres grading 11.07 grams gold per tonne from 304 metres depth, including 4.3 metres at 34.31 grams gold, Omai said in a release on Monday. The project is about 165 km southwest of the capital Georgetown.

“We are excited to see a very significant new zone at the east end of Wenot, where there has been limited drilling in the past,” Omai CEO Elaine Ellingham said in a release. “[Drilling at Wenot] has multiple purposes: it is expected to further increase the Wenot resource, to contribute to reducing the strip ratio in the upcoming PEA, and to upgrade some of the Inferred [resource] to Indicated [resource] in the major gold zones.”

Top undeveloped project

The results at Omai, which ranks as Guyana’s second-largest undeveloped gold project by contained ounces, come as the company prepares to release an updated resource and preliminary economic assessment in the first half of next year. Omai is made up of the Wenot and Gilt Creek targets.

Omai shares gained 3% to C$1.25 apiece on Monday morning in Toronto, for a market capitalization of C$794.6 million.

Other strong assays from East Wenot include hole 25ODD-144 that returned 31.6 metres grading 1.11 grams gold from 526 metres depth, including 12 metres at 0.98 gram gold and 13 metres grading 0.99 gram gold.

Hole 25ODD-146 returned 16 metres at 1.02 grams gold from 304 metres depth.

The new zone revealed by holes 25ODD-142 and 25ODD-146 shows the central contact and quartz feldspar porphyry unit might dip to the south in this eastern area, Omai said.

‘Open pit potential’

In the Central Wenot zone, hole 25ODD-145W cut 13.3 metres grading 13.54 grams gold from 398 metres depth, including 15 metres at 2.01 grams gold and 6.2 metres grading 27.82 grams gold.

That hole “illustrates Wenot’s potential for a very robust open pit mine plan,” Ellingham said.

The results are from 35,300 metres drilled this year across 79 diamond drill holes at Omai.

The project sits on the site of the former Omai gold mine, which produced more than 3.7 million oz. of gold from 1993 to 2005 and stopped operations when gold traded below $400 an ounce.

Contained gold in the indicated category for Omai stands at 2.12 million oz. grading 2.07 grams gold per tonne in 31.9 million tonnes, according to a resource update from August. Contained gold in the inferred category almost doubled from the previous resource to 4.38 million oz. at 1.95 grams gold inside 69.6 million tonnes.