G2 Goldfields (TSXV: GTWO; US-OTC: GUYGF) updated its resource for the OKO-Aremu project in Guyana in April and plans to do so again by year’s end to reflect the increase in contained metal related to ongoing drilling.
The latest resource updates the OKO Main zone and provides a first estimate for the adjacent Ghanie zone at the project 120 km west-southwest of the South American country’s capital city, Georgetown. G2 increased total contained gold by 69% to 2 million oz. and quadrupled total indicated gold to 922,000 oz. compared with an initial estimate in 2022.
“We can potentially double the size of Ghanie’s contained gold just by drilling, filling out along strike there,” CEO Dan Noone said. “Our current focus is expanding the resource at Oko Northwest and Ghanie with the intent of publishing an updated resource in December. Further prospective targets along strike include Tracy and the historic Aremu area.”
The combined OKO Main zone open pit and underground resource holds 2.4 million indicated tonnes grading 9.03 g/t gold for 686,000 oz. gold. It has 2.4 million inferred tonnes at 6.38 g/t for 495,000 oz. gold.
Ghanie’s combined open pit and underground resource holds 3.3 million indicated tonnes grading 2.2 g/t for 236,000 oz. gold, according to the resource issued in April. It has 12.2 million inferred tonnes at 1.54 g/t for 604,000 oz. gold.
To date, the deepest drilling at Ghanie is to about 500 metres depth in the central area. At Ghanie North, drill hole GDD-93 returned 24.5 metres grading 5.3 grams from 124 metres downhole, including 4.5 metres at 25.2 g/t. Currently three rigs are drilling at Ghanie, targeting mineralization to a depth of 500 metres along Ghanie’s entire 1.5 km of surface expression. The company is also targeting north and northwest of the OKO Main zone for much of its planned 75,000 metres this year, the CEO said.
“It does add ounces and mine life when you go deeper than 500 metres,” Noone said. “But it doesn't change your net present value and, importantly, it doesn't change the scope of the size of the mine that you're going to build.”
G2 first reported a discovery in February at OKO Northwest, 3 km from the Main zone, with drill hole NWOD-1 intersecting 10.3 metres grading 3.7 g/t gold from 37.7 metres depth and hole NWOD-22 returning 15 metres at 6.3 g/t gold from 21 metres downhole.
“The best use of funds at the moment is to find more near-surface ounces,” Noone said.
The OKO Main zone is a narrow series of five shear veins being envisioned as an underground mine for its high-grade near-surface ore. Ghanie is a more disseminated style of mineralization that could probably be half open pit and underground. OKO Northwest has sheeted veins in shear zones 20 to 50 metres wide, grading on average 0.8 g/t gold per tonne as well as higher-grade zones in discrete shear veins similar to OKO Main, the CEO said.
“Oko Northwest is looking very promising as far as being the next zone which we consider has the same potential as the OKO Main/Ghanie trend, Noone added.
The Ghanie zone is the same deposit as the abutting Oko West project. This year, G Mining Ventures (TSX: GMIN; US-OTC: GMINF) agreed to buy Reunion Gold (TSXV: RGD) for $875 million.
G2 Goldfields is advancing the 112-km2 OKO project for an eventual buyout expected within a year, Noone says. It plans to spin out unrelated assets, including several targets within a 20-km radius of OKO, into a proposed company called G3 later this year.
“We believe the best value creation for shareholders is to transact with a third party and then move on to the spin-out company,” the CEO said. “As G2 and Reunion Gold progress toward attaining mining permits for the respective concessions of each company, it would make sense to take a course of action with the view that these concessions would conceivably coalesce at some stage.”
G2’s founders financed and developed Guyana’s largest gold mine, Aurora, before it was eventually sold to China’s Zijin Mining in 2020 for US$238 million. AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE:AU), the fourth-largest gold producer, bought an 11.7% stake in G2 for $22.5 million in December. G2 insiders own 27% of the company.
The Proterozoic Guiana Shield cuts across the continent’s northeast. In Guyana, the shield hosts the OKO project, the Aurora gold mine (6.5 million oz. in global resources) and the Omai gold mine (which produced 3.7 million oz.) and Aris Mining’s (TSX: ARIS; US-OTC: TPRFF) Toraparu project. In Suriname, Iamgold [TSX IMG; NYSE: IAG] sold the Rosebel mine to Zijin Mining in 2022 and Newmont has (NYSE: NEM; TSX: NGT) the Merian gold mine.
The Guiana Shield is considered a continuation of geology found in West Africa where some 300 million oz. of gold have been discovered versus about a third as much on the South American side, of which 60 million oz. are in Venezuela, Noone said.
“The rest of the shield is amazingly underrepresented statistically,” he said. “Guyana, as far as the shield goes, is in the sweet spot for a series of discoveries not unlike Venezuela in the 1990s, save for ensuing state sanctioned actions.”
Venezuela’s socialist president Hugo Chavez nationalized the country’s gold industry in 2011. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, resurrected a unilateral territorial dispute with Guyana and vowed in December to annex two-thirds of its neighbour, including the resource rich Essequibo region which intersects the recent oil discoveries. The Venezuelan leader’s claims have been widely discredited as nationalistic posturing.
Infrastructure is expanding rapidly in Guyana following ExxonMobil’s 2015 discovery of 11 billion barrels of offshore oil. Petroleum is propelling the country to be one of the world’s fastest-growing economies with 34% growth forecast this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. Mining companies may also benefit from the former British colony’s rule of law and English language, Noone said.
G2 has announced that it intends to spin out its non-core assets into G3 this year. The new company will focus on the former Peters mine, the country’s highest grade gold producer, which ran from 1905 to 1910. It returned roughly 41,000 oz. of gold with mill head grades of more than 1 oz. per tonne. Most of the output was from less than 60 metres deep, allowing the opportunity to discover more high-grade mineralization below the previously mined areas.
“We’re still an exploration company, we're not a mining company,” the CEO said. “If M&A comes along, as it certainly has on our southern border, we're prepared for it.”
Noone says the G3 team will aim for a resource of a few million ounces at Peters mine as opposed to the 100,000 or so ounces the World Bank estimated from a single shoot in 1966. Drilling in the 1990s returned gold intervals supporting the site’s potential.
“We're quite excited to get out there and find things other than the Peters mine itself,” he said. “There's a lot of work to do as far as figuring out exactly what the controls are, but we think our knowledge of these systems has come a long way in the last 15 or 20 years.”
Noone, who is originally from Australia and lives in Canada, first went to Guyana nearly 20 years ago. He was following G2 executive chairman Patrick Sheridan, who had been exploring there since 1993.
“Once I went down there, the opportunity was staring me in the face,” he said. “I had worked in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia for eight years, and people suggested Guyana’s jungles were tough. In fact, it’s rather a pleasant environment to work in and I was immediately captivated by the immense potential which we continue to re-discover.”
The preceding Joint Venture Article is PROMOTED CONTENT sponsored by G2 Goldfields and produced in co-operation with The Northern Miner. For more information visit www.g2goldfields.com.
November 14, 2024
November 14, 2024
November 13, 2024
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