First 5,000-metre Drill Programme Commences at the Nguni Gold Target in Namibia

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On 15 September, Ongwe Minerals announced that it has commenced the first round of drilling at the newly discovered Nguni gold target within the Omatjete Gold Project in Namibia, with two drill rigs now on site. The programme is planned to complete approximately 5,000 metres of drilling, of which the diamond rig is scheduled to drill 18 holes for a total of about 3,500 metres, focusing on testing the higher-grade areas within the soil gold anomaly; the other reverse circulation rig is planned to drill 13 holes for a total of about 1,500 metres, to test the strike extension of the anomaly zone.

Nguni is located within Ongwe's Omatjete Gold Project, approximately 17 kilometres east of the Manga gold discovery and about 55 kilometres from WIA Gold's Kokoseb gold deposit. The target was discovered by Ongwe during regional soil sampling carried out in May 2026, with exploration work conducted along the Okondeka fault zone. The latest infill sampling has delineated a gold anomaly zone over 6 kilometres long, with a total of 50 soil samples in the central area returning gold values exceeding 300 ppb, with a maximum of 1,310 ppb.

Diamond drilling will initially focus on the high-priority area in the northwest of Nguni and will continue to test the higher-grade soil anomalies in the northwest and southeast. Reverse circulation drilling will cover the relatively lower-priority strike extension areas to determine whether continuous subsurface gold mineralisation exists in these areas. The project team stated that both drilling programmes will be dynamically adjusted based on geological logging of drill core and the first batch of assay results.

In addition to the first round of drilling at Nguni, Ongwe has also finalised an infill drilling programme for the eastern extension zone of the Manga gold target, planning to drill 5 diamond holes for a total of approximately 1,000 metres. Manga is located approximately 17 kilometres west of Nguni and was discovered through regional soil sampling in the fourth quarter of 2024. Of the previous 11 reverse circulation scout holes, 10 returned anomalous gold values, with hole MRC006 having intersected 138 metres at an average gold grade of 0.22 g/t.

Nguni currently has no mineral resource estimate. This first 5,000-metre drill programme will for the first time directly verify the subsurface extension, thickness and continuity of the 6-kilometre surface gold anomaly. Ongwe uses laboratory fire assay methods to verify priority soil samples, and the company's qualified persons are responsible for drilling and sampling quality control.