Omai books high grades at Guyana’s Wenot deposit

New drilling at Omai Gold Mines’ (TSX-V: OMG; US-OTC: OMGGF) Wenot deposit in Guyana encountered wide zones of high-grade mineralization, the company said.

Hole 25ODD-119 cut 7.5 metres at 31.7 grams gold from about 496 metres depth and 36.3 metres grading 1.61 grams gold from 623 metres downhole, Omai Gold said Tuesday in a statement. Another hole, 25ODD-118, intersected 14.5 metres grading 3.1 grams gold from about 637 metres.

The Toronto-based company is working to update the resource at Wenot, one of two deposits at the past-producing Omai gold project, later this year. Crews have now drilled 37 holes covering 20,500 metres so far in 2025, surpassing the original planned 15,000-metre program. Results are pending for eight of those holes.

Once the resource has been updated, a new preliminary economic assessment (PEA) will follow three or four months later, Omai said.

Growth story

Omai Gold “remains one of the best development growth stories that we see in the industry,” Haywood Securities mining analyst Jamie Spratt said in a note. “Given the success to date in drilling underneath the 2.5 km strike length of the Wenot pit, we believe our previously identified target range of 3 million-4 million oz. at Wenot is eminently achievable. Our view that Omai is on a trajectory toward a 200,000-300,000 oz. per year production profile over 20+ years continues to strengthen.”

Another highlight hole among the six whose results were released Tuesday is 25ODD-124W, which cut 17.4 metres at 3.49 grams gold from 440 metres depth. This included 7.4 metres at 6.31 grams from about 444 metres downhole.

“These drill results again exemplify the multiple zones we have at Wenot,” CEO Elaine Ellingham said in the statement. “We are confident that the limits of the Wenot mineralization are still open for further expansion.”

Drilling is now shifting towards earlier-stage gold targets both along strike at Wenot and on some near-surface zones where gold has already been identified, Ellingham said. The goal is to identify and quantify near-surface economic satellite deposits that could contribute to early mining.

Aggressive drilling

Omai Gold’s February 2024 resource estimated that the Wenot open pit deposit and the adjacent Gilt Creek underground deposit contained an indicated 29 million tonnes grading 2.15 grams gold for 2 million oz. of contained metal. The inferred resource was estimated at 31 million tonnes grading 2.26 grams gold for 2.3 million oz. in contained metal.

A subsequent PEA, released two months later, contemplated an open pit-only development scenario and included only 45% of the Omai resource. Since then, the company has been aggressively drilling to expand gold resources at Wenot and has identified additional wide zones of high-grade gold mineralization.

Omai was once South America’s largest primary gold mine, churning out 3.8 million oz. from 1993 to 2005. It closed when the gold price fell below $400 an ounce.

Shares of Omai Gold closed unchanged at 76¢ in Toronto Tuesday. That gave the company a market capitalization of about $467 million.