Omai Gold Project a “rare gem” with potential to exceed 300,000 ounces a year – CEO

Jul 13, 2026 News

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(Kaieteur News) – President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Omai Gold Mines Corp., Elaine Ellingham, says the historic Omai Gold Project has evolved into what she describes as a “rare gem” with the potential to produce more than 300,000 ounces of gold annually.

During a recent interview with the KE Report, Ellingham said the company currently has five drill rigs operating across the property and expects drilling to continue through the end of the year as it advances the project toward its next major milestone, a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA).

The Omai Gold Mine produced over 3.7 million ounces of gold from 1993 to 2005, ceasing operations when gold was below US$400 per ounce. Since returning to Guyana’s mining sector in 2020, Omai through its subsidiary Avalon Gold Exploration Inc., has identified 2.5 million ounces of gold in the indicated category at the historic OMAI Gold project. The company holds 100% interest in the project which hosts two orogenic gold deposits: Wenot and Gilt.

Ellingham noted that the Wenot deposit will grow into a “super pit.” “That thing is two and a half kilometres long. The constraining pit in that resource is over a kilometre wide and we have it down to half a kilometre, 500 metres down,” Ellingham explained.

She added that because of the enormous size of the deposit, a significant amount of drilling is still required to fill the remaining gaps, even though the project has already reached an estimated resource of eight million ounces in both indicated and inferred categories.

“We don’t have to make this any bigger. Basically, at that level, you can run forward and say yes, it’s probably going to be a mine. Let’s move forward on the economic studies but as we continue to do that drilling and some of the infill drilling to upgrade those ounces, we are still going to end up making it bigger because there’s still big gaps in there that we haven’t drilled,” Ellingham said.

She further noted that continued drilling has uncovered extensive zones of higher-grade mineralisation. The CEO explained that this could significantly improve the project’s economics. “Those are going to make a lot of difference to the economics. And when you see numbers like that can be underground mining. Those are those grades are good enough for underground mining,” Ellingham added.

She added, “It just keeps on giving and keeps on giving, never disappointing, beautiful looking core.”

Moreover, Ellingham explained that projects of Omai’s scale offer significantly greater long-term value. She outlined that doubled the projects Mineral Resource Estimate to almost eight million ounces in less than two years.

“Mines like this with 8 million ounces, you know you’re talking you know a 20-year mine life and as you said,” she noted.  Ellingham added that drilling has already confirmed mineralisation hundreds of metres below the Wenot deposit, suggesting the deposit could support mining for decades.

“We’ve drilled 700 meters below Wenot and showed that the shear is still there and it had seven gold zones. So, it’s a proof of concept. But what it tells people is, this is probably a 20, 30-year mine, or even more,” Ellingham said.

Omai’s CEO went on to say the results have put the company in a position to prove the project is a “rare gem.”

According to Ellingham, drilling has already extended to roughly 960 metres and the company plans to continue toward 1,200 metres.

“Someone was asking me how deep we’re going to go, and it’s like, well, if we keep getting mineralisation, we’ll probably keep going, and we’ll see what it looks like. And if it’s really good, we’ll try and keep going. And as you know, this other hole that we drilled ended up being just over two kilometers long, 2000 meters. So basically, the drill out absolutely has the capacity to do that. So that’s truly the fun stuff. That’s the true exploration,” she stated.

The Omai Gold Mine is located in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni). The project’s April 2026 MRE reveal that there is 2,495,000 ounces of gold in the indicated category and 5,465,000 ounces in the inferred category.

Reflecting on the project’s evolution, Ellingham said that when she first began evaluating the project there were no defined resources. “I have worked on these shear hosted deposits before, so I kind of thought you know the target was like, we can find three or five million ounces and get this into a 250-300,000-ounce producer. And like, a lot of people looked at me like I was a little delusional,” Ellingham added.

She admitted that in reality, she never thought the project would get to this stage, with an estimated eight million ounces and both open pit and underground mining potential.

Ellingham believes the project could support even higher levels of production depending on the size of the processing plant. “They’ve got a lot of capacity with that huge open pit and the underground, so yeah so it can even go over 300,000 ounces a year…” she added.

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• Gold Mining, Guyana Gold, Omai Gold Mines, rare gem

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