Omai concludes drilling in Wenot; to finalise new resource estimate by October

…will start mapping eastern Wenot extension next week

After a successful drilling campaign in the Wenot pit in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), Canadian company Omai Goldmines will be finalising a new resource estimate for the site by October that will guide their future endeavours.

In a statement on Monday, the company announced “significant” results from several drill holes on the western end of the Wenot pit, holes which Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elaine Ellingham said confirm the continuity of the gold finds in the western end and the grade of gold, on a grams per tonne (g/t) basis.
“Holes 22ODD-051 and 052 were designed to in-fill and confirm the continuity of the gold mineralised shears at depth below the western end of Wenot and proved extremely successful with wide intersections, including 33.9 m averaging 2.27 g/t Au and 20.3 m at 1.92 g/t Au, in addition to multiple additional subparallel gold zones.”
“These gold-bearing shear structures at the west end of Wenot are particularly important since they come to surface and are now identified to a vertical depth of at least 320 m, which is expected to allow the expansion of the constraining pit for the updated resource. Only the surficial saprolite cover was historically mined in this area,” Ellingham said.
She went on to note that they have not seen any limitations at this point in time on the depth and potential for gold strikes in the Wenot zones. As such, Omai remains optimistic that with additional drilling the gold zones can be expanded. Additionally, she noted that an updated resource estimate report is being prepared.
“We expect to deliver our new NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate in October, which will incorporate results from the eleven additional drill holes completed on Wenot this year. More significantly, the resource estimate is expected to be augmented by the inclusion of an additional gold deposit, hosted within the adjacent Omai Stock, located less than 400 m north of Wenot,” she said.
Omai further explained that their drilling in 2021 and 2022 confirms the significant gold potential on the south side of Wenot, while drilling this year aided in understanding the potential in the prime target areas immediately east and west of the past producing pit. They noted that when drilling resumes, work will focus on expanding exploration in these areas.
Now that the company has completed this phase of their 2022 drilling with 23 holes totalling 5896 m, they noted that they will start a programme of soil geochemical sampling and mapping, focused on the eastern extension of the Wenot shear corridor, next week.
“The company’s drilling has confirmed gold mineralisation within the Wenot shear along a strike of 2.7 km, which hosted both past-production of 1.4 million ounces1 of gold plus the company’s resource of 16.7 million tonnes of indicated mineral resources averaging 1.31 grams of gold per tonne for 703,300 ounces of gold, and 19.5 million tonnes of inferred mineral resources averaging 1.50 grams of gold per tonne for 940,000 ounces of gold.”
“Geophysics and historical work have confirmed that the Wenot shear corridor continues at least 3.9 km further to the east, with auger holes assaying 0.83 g/t and 0.98 g/t Au at the eastern-most projection of the zone,” Omai said in their statement.
According to Omai, most of the area along this projection has seen little to no exploration and they believe there is excellent potential for new discoveries along this trend. In total, the property covers over 7 km of the projected Wenot shear.
The Canadian company only returned to the Wenot and Fennell pits at the Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni) site in 2020 after leaving Guyana in 2015. They had announced in December 2020 that they would be pressing forward with the 5000-metre drilling programme.
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 their 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. (G3)