Canadian gold explorer Ongwe Minerals Inc. has expanded its landholding in Namibia’s emerging Northwest Damara gold belt after securing an additional exploration licence and applying for a second, increasing the size of its Omatjete Project area by up to 42%.
The company said it has acquired a 90% interest in the adjacent EPL 7400, which covers about 36,600 hectares, and has submitted an application for EPL 11268, covering a further 8,200 hectares.
The transactions significantly extend Ongwe’s control over the Okondeka Fault Zone, a major regional structure that hosts the Kokoseb gold deposit and Ongwe’s own Manga Gold Prospect.
Following the expansion, Ongwe now controls about 50 kilometres of strike along the Okondeka Fault Zone, which hosts the Kokoseb deposit owned by WIA Gold and the recently discovered Manga prospect.
The enlarged land package also incorporates a newly interpreted parallel structural corridor, the Okakongo Fault Zone.
Ongwe said a recent in-house reinterpretation of regional structures indicates that, east of the Manga discovery, the Okondeka Fault steps around a large granitic body before continuing along the Okakongo Fault System.
The company said both fault systems re-emerge beyond the granite and together form a structurally complex corridor extending over approximately 25 kilometres.
According to Ongwe, these newly identified relay zones and fault intersections have the potential to act as conduits and trap sites for gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids.
The Okakongo Fault System lies within the Swakop Sedimentary Group, which hosts all of Namibia’s known gold deposits, and is intruded by several granitic bodies, further enhancing prospectivity.
The company said strong geological parallels can be drawn between this setting and the Kokoseb deposit, estimated at 2.9 million ounces of gold, as well as the Manga Gold Prospect.
The acquisition of EPL 7400 was completed through Ongwe’s Namibian subsidiary, Belmont Mineral Exploration (Pty) Ltd, which acquired a 90% equity interest in Fallout Investments (Pty) Ltd, the holder of the licence. The application for EPL 11268 remains subject to approval by Namibia’s Ministry of Industries, Mines and Energy.
Ongwe chief executive David Underwood said the licence expansion completes the company’s objective of covering the full extent of the highly prospective Okondeka Fault Zone within the Omatjete Project area and opens up a second major fault system for exploration.
The licence expansion comes as Ongwe has commenced bedrock sampling at the Belmont Gold Prospect within its Khorixas Project.
Belmont lies in the northern part of the Khorixas licence area and has a surface footprint of about 12 kilometres by 6 kilometres. However, most of the geology is concealed beneath calcrete and sheetwash cover.
The Belmont discovery was made through systematic calcrete and soil sampling, which outlined 18 targets. Several targets have returned high-grade gold rock-chip results, including grades of up to 145.7 grams per tonne gold, while limited historical scout drilling recorded intercepts of up to six metres at 6.85 grams per tonne gold from 20 metres depth.
Ongwe said the current bedrock sampling programme will test at least ten priority target zones at Belmont, to generate walk-up drill targets for drilling later in 2026.
The company holds three flagship gold projects in Namibia, including the Omatjete, Khorixas, and Outjo Projects.
The Outjo Project lies along strike from Osino Resources’s Eureka gold discovery and occupies a similar geological setting.
Ongwe said the expanded Omatjete landholding strengthens its dominant position in the Northwest Damara gold belt as it continues to advance exploration along long-lived, deep-seated structures that control gold mineralisation in the region.
