Canadian company Omai Goldmines Corporation, plans to update its resource estimate next month after months of positive signs and drilling results from its mining pit at Wenot, Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).
This was announced in a statement from Omai Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and President, Elaine Ellingham, while the company announced that for the year, 14 holes have been completed and that hole 230DD-065 encountered gold at a depth of 140 metres. In fact, gold was identified at 22 locations within the core.
“The current drilling of the Wenot target area remains focused on: 1) testing some of the undrilled gaps within the Wenot deposit model to increase the resource, 2) expanding the western “starter pit” area, and 3) providing evidence of the vast open potential at depth for the Wenot deposit,” Ellingham detailed.
“These new results and recent results with wide and good grade zones are expected to positively impact the resources as we move forward to an updated mineral resource estimate expected in late September.”
According to the Omai executive, a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) will be prepared immediately after the estimate. She also provided further details on their latest drilling, including the work done on hole 23ODD-065. Ellingham revealed that the hole intersects two gold zones.
“The gold zones within hole 23ODD-065 are at the northern flank of the Wenot deposit and at a relatively shallow depth. Such wide, high-grade and shallow zones will be important for a future open pit operation. Unfortunately, this hole was lost before it reached the central shear, where additional gold zones would have been expected,” Ellingham detailed in the release.
Meanwhile, the company explained that even though the hole was terminated before it could go further, there will be further exploration. According to Omai, they are considering how best to proceed with hole 23ODD-065.
“The Company believes these gold zones within the metasediments are more continuous along the length of the Wenot deposit, however large areas have not yet been drilled (figure 3). The early termination of hole 23ODD-065 resulted in the gold zones within the metasediments not being tested by this hole.”
“The Company is assessing how best to explore these potentially significant zones. Hole 23ODD-065 ended prematurely when the drill rods became wedged,” the company also explained. Meanwhile, Omai plans to drill an additional three to four holes during the current drill programme, before it updates its mineral resource estimate in September.
Last year, Omai announced that it was accelerating its drilling campaign with the addition of a second drill. In a statement, the company had explained that the second drill was intended to supplement the work being done by the first one on nearby targets.
Back in February 2022, the company announced that it would continue drilling at its Region Seven location since it believes that even more deposits of gold are available at the Wenot deposit.
Prior to that, the company had filed a technical report with SEDAR, which supports the 16.7 million tonnes of indicated gold and 19.5 million tonnes of inferred gold it had announced the Wenot deposit held.
In this technical report, consultant P&E Mining explained that extending the Wenot deposit is expected to cost US$2.65 million and be completed in the next 12 months. According to the report, exploring these targets could provide opportunities for open-pit mining.
In January 2022, Omai Gold Mines had announced the discovery of significant gold values during initial trenching and drilling on the Broccoli Hill target at its Region Seven holdings. The company had disclosed that trenching exposed a quartz-rich shear zone with samples assaying 29.3 g/t Au, 7.8 g/t Au, 5.0 g/t Au and 2.2 g/t Au along a 40-metre strike.
Additionally, the first round of drilling on Broccoli Hill, totalling 690 metres, intersected gold mineralisation with four of the six holes returning assays greater than 1 g/t Au and as high as 4.04 g/t Au over 0.9 m and 0.91 g/t over 6.8 m.
Omai Gold Mines, which returned to the Wenot and Fennell pits in 2020 after leaving Guyana in 2015, had announced in December 2020 that it would be pressing forward with a 5000-metre drilling programme.
