An independent technical assessment has concluded that Ongwe Minerals’ Omatjete Gold Project in Namibia has sufficient geological merit to justify an estimated C$8.5 million two-phase exploration programme, providing the strongest independent endorsement yet of the company’s flagship gold project despite it remaining at the exploration stage with no declared mineral resource.
The National Instrument (NI) 43-101 technical report, prepared by independent consultancy The MSA Group with an effective date of 31 May 2026, recommends advancing the project’s Manga and Nguni prospects through additional target refinement, extensive diamond drilling and continued regional exploration.
The report concludes that the geological setting, structural controls, and exploration results accumulated to date justify a substantial increase in exploration expenditure.
The Omatjete Project is located in Namibia’s Erongo Region between Omaruru and Omatjete, approximately 210 kilometres northwest of Windhoek.
It comprises five granted Exclusive Prospecting Licences and two licence applications, covering about 155,362 hectares. The licences are held through Belmont Mineral Exploration, in which Ongwe owns a 51% interest.
The report identifies the project as being situated within the Central Zone of the Damara Belt, one of Namibia’s most prospective gold provinces, where mineralisation is associated with Kuiseb Formation metasedimentary rocks, major regional fault systems and syn- to late-tectonic granitic intrusions.
According to the qualified person, these geological characteristics closely match the structural environment that hosts several of Namibia’s significant recent gold discoveries.
Particular emphasis is placed on the regionally significant Okondeka Fault Zone, which the report identifies as the principal structural control on mineralisation.
Both Manga and the recently discovered Nguni prospect occur along this corridor, where faults, splays, relay structures and granite contacts are interpreted to have created favourable pathways and trap sites for gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids.
The report notes that Ongwe has substantially revised its geological understanding of the project during the past year.
Following a reinterpretation of the regional structural framework, the company expanded the project area by 42% through the acquisition of additional licence ground, thereby increasing its control of the Okondeka Fault Zone to approximately 50 kilometres of strike length.
The new structural model identified additional relay structures and granite contacts considered prospective for gold mineralisation.
Among the project’s exploration targets, Manga remains the most advanced. Exploration has included geological mapping, rock-chip sampling, trenching, reverse-circulation drilling, drone magnetic surveys, soil geochemistry, and an extensive bedrock sampling programme.
Together these programmes have outlined a coherent bedrock gold anomaly extending for approximately two kilometres along strike.
The independent review highlights an important technical development at Manga. Bedrock sampling indicates that mineralisation strengthens towards the eastern part of the prospect beneath increasingly thicker calcrete cover.
The report notes that the initial reverse-circulation drilling programme was completed more than one kilometre west of the strongest bedrock anomaly subsequently identified, indicating that the most prospective section of the mineralised system has yet to be fully drill-tested.
Reverse circulation drilling completed to date has intersected broad zones of low-grade gold mineralisation hosted within quartz-biotite schists containing quartz-sulphide veins.
The best results include 138 metres grading 0.22 grams per tonne gold, including narrower higher-grade intervals, while subsequent surface sampling has returned rock-chip assays of up to 19.75 grams per tonne gold from arsenic-rich quartz-sulphide veined schists.
The report also identifies Nguni as an increasingly important exploration target.
Discovered during regional soil sampling in 2026, the prospect is located approximately 17 kilometres east of Manga and has already produced a gold-in-soil anomaly extending about five kilometres.
Fire assay results from infill sampling returned individual values of up to 730 parts per billion gold, while the anomaly remains open to the north, east and west, suggesting considerable exploration upside.
The qualified person noted that although Nguni is at an earlier stage than Manga, its significance could elevate it to the company’s highest-priority exploration target following additional work.
The report proposes a two-phase work programme, beginning with additional geological mapping, bedrock sampling, infill geochemical surveys, and target refinement before commencing a 10,000-metre diamond-drilling campaign at Manga and Nguni. Continued regional soil sampling across the wider project area would run alongside drilling, while a second phase would expand drilling based on the initial results.
The total budget is estimated at C$8.5 million.
The independent review also examined Ongwe’s exploration methodology, including its proprietary detectORE™ rapid field-screening technology.
While concluding that the system provides an effective tool for rapidly identifying gold anomalies during exploration, the qualified person emphasised that laboratory fire assays remain the basis for quantitative reporting and any future mineral resource estimation. The report further concluded that the company’s sampling, analytical procedures and quality assurance protocols are appropriate for an exploration project at this stage.
Despite the positive assessment, the report stresses that Omatjete remains an early-stage exploration project.
No mineral resources or mineral reserves have yet been estimated, and key uncertainties remain regarding the geometry, continuity, grade and depth extent of the mineralised structures.
Two exploration licence applications are also still awaiting approval from the Namibian authorities. Nevertheless, the qualified person concluded that the combination of favourable geology, regional structures, encouraging drilling and geochemical results, and the newly developed structural model provides sufficient technical justification for significantly expanding exploration across the project.
