…as 10 active drill rigs operating at Oko West Gold Project
(Kaieteur News) – Canadian mining company G Mining Ventures (GMIN) is pushing ahead with development of its Oko West Gold Project in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), with 10 drill rigs currently operating on the property.
President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GMIN, Louis-Pierre Gignac, in a recent interview with Crux Investor, said the company is focused on advancing the project towards production, with active drill rigs, as first gold expected in about 12 months.
He reminded that GMIN recently completed the US$2.2 billion acquisition of fellow Canadian firm G2 Goldfields Inc. (G2’s) gold project in Guyana, bringing the Oko West and G2’s Oko Ghanie deposits under one project.
President and CEO of GMIN, Louis-Pierre Gignac
According to Gignac, the transaction has created significant synergies since the deposits are part of the same mineralised system. He explained that the combined property now has a strike length of approximately five kilometres, with two main underground mines forming part of the expanded project.
Despite the addition of G2’s property that GMIN will now have to develop, Gignac said the company does not intend to slow down the development of Oko West. “We have an FS (Feasibility Study) for Oko. We’re almost, you know, we’re 12 months away from first gold. So, the point is, we don’t want to slow that down,” he said.
First gold pour is targeted for the second half of 2027 and commercial production expected in early 2028. The CEO explained that GMIN’s approach is focused on optimising Oko West for scale rather than rushing to production simply to generate cash flow.
“We’re looking to optimise it for scale,” he said. He added that increasing production to approximately 500,000 ounces annually would be key to establishing Oko West as what the industry considers a Tier One asset.
“For us, that’s 500,000 ounces at least 10 years of mine life, bottom half of the cost curve, good jurisdiction and exploration upside. That’s checking all the boxes,” Gignac said. The addition of G2 property enables planned production to increase the mine’s annual production from 350,000 to reach approximately 500,000 ounces of gold per year over a minimum mine life of 15 years.
He further disclosed that GMIN currently has 10 drill rigs operating at Oko West, all focused on infill drilling. “We have 55,000 meters that we want to punch in from now to the end of the year, and that’s advancing nicely,” he said.
The drilling programme is expected to feed into an updated feasibility study targeted for the middle of next year. Following completion of the infill drilling, GMIN intends to shift its focus towards greenfield exploration and further expansion of the project’s resource potential.
Gignac said GMIN intends to expand the project by adding another two million tonnes of processing capacity. “And that’s going to be a pretty low CapEx because we don’t need all the bells and whistles of supporting infrastructure to support that. It’s already there as part of what we’re building,” he said.
Moreover, he underscored majority of the mining area it acquired from the G2 transaction remains unexplored. “A lot of it is unexplored. I mean, G2 didn’t have the time to fully explore it. And so that’s where there’s a lot of excitement in terms of the targets that we can start developing,” he said. To this end, Gignac added that the G2 land package would require significant exploration work.
Notwithstanding the work ahead, Gignac said, “This is quickly becoming the future flagship of the group, of the company for sure,” he said.
GMIN’s entry into Guyana was secured in 2024 through a business combination with another Canadian company, Reunion Gold Corp., valued at US$638 million. GMIN’s deal with Reunion added the Oko West Gold Project to its portfolio.
Source: Kaieteur News
