Avalon seeking environmental approval to explore Omai gold pit

…targeting 1.8M ounces of gold

Avalon Gold Exploration, a company operating the Omai Gold Mine in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), is seeking environmental authorization to explore for, and make preparations to produce, gold at Omai’s Wenot pit; and is targets as much as 1.8 million ounces of gold.
The company has approached the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeking authorization to explore for gold in the Omai Gold Mine. The environmental authorization being sought would cover the company’s 2024-2025 work programme, during which diamond drilling and engineering studies would be conducted, among other activities which have been described as low impact.
“The 2024-2025 proposed work program will continue the definition and expansion of gold resources, and continue engineering studies in order to develop an economically sound, actionable mine plan that addresses responsible environmental stewardship,” the project document has detailed.
“The planned program consists mostly diamond drilling, minor geophysics, minor geological mapping and trenching, all very low environmental impact work. This work is to expand and optimize the resource for development, combined with engineering studies that will focus on advancing the Wenot deposit towards production”, the document has detailed.
There are also plans to establish a 9,000-tonne-per- day processing plant with an initial cost of approximately US$375 million. A preliminary assessment had established an initial production target of 1.83 million ounces of gold at the Wenot open pit mine. This works out to an average of 142,000 ounces of gold per year over a 13-year mine life.
“The 2024-2025 proposed work plan also incorporates engineering studies that, subject to approval, will include initiating the de-watering of the Wenot pit in 2024. The de-watering of the Wenot pit is a critical first step, essential and fundamental to re-development of the Omai mine. As this process is a long lead time (estimated at 12-24 months), the Company intends to advance this as soon as EPA approval is received,” the project document added.
The EPA has, in a notice, invited the public to make written submissions regarding this project within 28 days. The notice has asked that any questions and topics the public requires to be addressed or considered in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) be included in the written submissions.
Omai Gold Mines produced over 3 million ounces of gold between 1993 and 2005. It subsequently exited Guyana in 2015, only to return to the Wenot and Fennell pits in 2020.
Avalon Gold Exploration is a private gold exploration company focused on gold projects in Guyana. The company’s flagship gold project is the famous Omai Gold Mine, the licence for which it acquired from the Guyana Government in 2019 for US$4 million. 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 to be deposited in the Wenot.
In that 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 mineralization 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. (G3)