Two Australian firms now hold 770 km² gold lands in Guyana

Aug 17, 2026 News

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…in area where foreign players already establish 9M ounces of gold

By Renay Sambach

(Kaieteur News) – Two Australian-listed mining companies have secured individual interests in gold-bearing lands covering about 770 square kilometres (km²) in Guyana’s Oko gold district, an area where nine million ounces of gold have already been established by other foreign players.

To put the land holdings size into perspective, the combined land package is about 19 times the size of Georgetown, which covers approximately 40 km².

Altair Minerals and Liberty Metals add to the growing number of foreign companies exploring the mineral-rich district located in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni).

Altair holds 70% interest in the Greater Oko Gold Project which spans across 590 km² contiguous mining lands, while Liberty holds 90% interest in the Oko North and Oko South Gold Projects, a package of 40 granted medium-scale mining permits covering approximately 180 km².

Together, the two Australian companies now have interests spanning roughly 770 km² in the wider Oko district.

Both companies secured their interest in the gold projects through agreements with Guyanese vendors.

Liberty announced its entry into the Oko district on 12^th August, 2026 stating that it entered into a binding four-year option agreement with a private Guyanese vendor. However, Liberty did not disclose the name of the private Guyanese vendor.

Meanwhile, Altair’s entry into the resource rich area was secured a year ago, when it entered into a binding heads of agreement in August 2025, via a deal with Guyanese conglomerate, Adamantium Exploration Inc., a company owned by the Alphonso family.

Besides Altair and Liberty, Canada-based G Mining Ventures Corp. (GMIN) also has a major land package in the Oko district.

GMIN recently completed the acquisition of fellow Canadian firm G2 Goldfields Inc. to consolidate GMIN’s advanced Oko West gold project with G2’s Oko-Ghanie gold projects with a Combined Measured & Indicated Mineral Resources of 7.0 million ounces and Inferred Mineral Resources of 2.3 million ounces.

The deal is valued at C$3 billion (approximately US$2.2 billion). GMIN’s acquisition of G2 has expanded the company’s footprint in the Oko district to a contiguous land package of over 362 km².

Altair Minerals

Altair Minerals has hailed Guyana for being the “last truly pro-mining country” in the Guiana Shield and for boasting mining lands that are significantly underexplored.

The project area consists of four advanced targets: South Oko (SOKO), North Peters (NP), Old Granny (OG) and Kmung (KM).

The company this month commenced drilling at one of the four targets at the Greater Oko Gold Project.  Diamond drilling is underway at the North Peters (NP) target, as part of Altair’s recent launch of a fully funded 75,000 metre exploration programme for the project.

Altair previously described Greater Oko as having the potential to become its “company maker” and one of the largest gold exploration projects in both Guyana and the wider Guiana Shield.

Altair’s deal with Adamantium Exploration Inc., caters for the company to expand its land holding in Guyana up to 3,500 km² of mining lands, positioning the company as the “most dominant explorer” in Guyana.

Notably, Altair had labelled its project as the “Last El Dorado” and outlined that its contiguous landholding cannot be replicated in Guyana, due to mining permits in Guyana held by locals mostly ranging from 0.5 to 5 km2, thereby creating barriers and creating an exhaustive and impractical process to negotiate with countless individual citizens.

On its website, Altair paints Guyana as the “last truly pro-mining” and politically stable country within the Guiana Shield. It also highlighted that Guyana mining areas host geology similar that of West African countries. Altair explained that Guyana’s mining lands consists of the same Birimian Greenstone Belt that has underpinned world-class gold discoveries across West Africa, including in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso.

Altair noted however, that unlike extensive exploration in the African nations, Guyana remains significantly underexplored.

Liberty Metals

Liberty’s land package is spread across two consolidated blocks located about 60 kilometres apart within the Oko gold district.

According to Liberty, its newly acquired mining lands remain largely unexplored using modern exploration techniques. The company said there has been limited historical systematic exploration across the permits, although small-scale alluvial gold mining has been conducted by the vendor and local operators. Liberty considers the presence of alluvial gold mining to be an indication of a potentially fertile gold system, but no hard-rock resource or reserve has yet been established on the Oko North and Oko South properties.

Moreover, under the agreement with the private Guyanese vendor, Liberty will have four years to exercise its option to acquire the 90% interest. The total consideration is at approximately US$8 million, excluding a separate milestone payment.  It was explained that the milestone payment would become payable on completion of a bankable feasibility study for the project.

Liberty Metals Director and Non-Executive Chair Nicholas Katris described the acquisition as a district-scale opportunity in what he considers one of the world’s most exciting gold camps.

Katris also outlined the structure of Guyana’s mining tenure system, noting that permits are granted in relatively small blocks, thereby making the consolidation of 40 permits significant. “What makes this opportunity so rare is the ground itself. Guyanese permits are granted in small blocks held by private citizens, so assembling 40 permits across roughly 180 square kilometres in two consolidated blocks, positioned to the north and south of the Oko deposits, is something that simply cannot be readily replicated,” he said.

Under the agreement, the Guyanese vendor will retain the right to conduct surface alluvial mining operations within the project area for six years from the signing of the agreement.

Notably, Liberty said that those operations must be conducted at the vendor’s own risk, cost and regulatory responsibility and are restricted to alluvial surface material. It was also made clear that the vendor will not be permitted to conduct hard-rock mining or processing under those retained rights.

The operations also cannot interfere with Liberty’s exploration activities and must maintain a 50-metre separation from Liberty’s drilling operations and areas covered by a resource estimate.

GMIN

Now that GMIN has finalised the US$2.2 billion acquisition G2, the company recently announced that it will soon launch a programme to advance and integrate G2’s Oko-Ghanie project.

The integration programme is aimed at advancing the Oko-Ghanie deposits through infill drilling to support an integrated Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) and an updated Feasibility Study (FS) for an expanded Oko Gold Project. Complementary technical programmes, including metallurgical, geotechnical, and other engineering studies is expected to begin in the second half of the year to support the integrated project development.

GMIN has outlined that the completion of the G2 acquisition creates a tier-one gold asset with potential to deliver substantially increased average annual gold production over the life of mine (LOM) once the expansion is completed.

The acquisition of G2’s gold project enables planned production to increase annual production from 350,000 to reach approximately 500,000 ounces of gold per year over a minimum mine life of 15 years.

By itself, the Oko West project is expected to produce about 350,000 ounces of gold annually over a 12.3-year mine life. GMIN’s exploration to date has outlined 5.4 million ounces of indicated gold resources and 0.4 million ounces of inferred material. In relation to proven and probable reserves, the Oko West is estimated to hold 4.64 million ounces of gold.

Meanwhile, according to G2, its Oko-Ghanie gold project average annual output is expected to reach 281,000 ounces annually during the mine’s peak years-with a total production of approximately 3.2 million ounces of gold over the life of mine. In relation to the Oko-Ghanie project, GMIN previously clarified that the project’s mineral resource from its perspective does not represent a “current” mineral resource estimate of the Oko-Ghanie Project. Rather, it was stated that it was provided by GMIN as a “historical estimate.”

Notably, GMIN’s deal with G2 also allowed G2 to complete the spin-out of a new company, G3 Goldfields Inc. – which will hold G2’s remaining properties not included in the acquisition.

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• Altair Minerals, GMIN, Gold Lands, Guyana Gold, liberty, Oko gold district

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