Australian-listed mining company Altair Minerals Limited has entered the Guyanese gold exploration sector with what it describes as the largest gold exploration project in Guyana and the broader Guiana Shield, praising the country as the last truly pro-mining and politically stable nation in the region.
After nine months of negotiations, Altair entered into a binding heads of agreement in August 2025 to acquire up to 70 percent of the Greater Oko Gold Project, a 590 square kilometre contiguous landholding in Region Seven. The joint venture was signed with Guyanese conglomerate Adamantium Exploration Inc., a company owned by the Alphonso family. For context, the landholding is roughly 15 times the size of Georgetown, which covers approximately 39 square kilometres. The agreement also provides for expansion of up to 3,500 square kilometres of mining lands, which would position Altair as the most dominant explorer in Guyana.
Altair said the Greater Oko Project is twice the combined size of every active gold project in Guyana, and sits adjacent to nearly nine million ounces of recent high-grade discoveries. The company highlighted that Guyana’s geology mirrors the Birimian Greenstone Belt found in West African nations such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso, regions that have underpinned world-class gold discoveries. Unlike those countries, however, Altair noted that Guyana remains significantly underexplored, representing what it called the last unexplored Birimian-like greenstone belt on the planet.
The company explained that the 590 square kilometre contiguous landholding is virtually impossible to replicate due to the fragmentation of mining permits in Guyana, where permits held by local miners typically range from 0.5 to 5 square kilometres, making large-scale land consolidation an exhaustive and impractical process.
Greater Oko contains four advanced exploration targets: South Oko, North Peters, Old Granny, and Kmung, with initial work focusing on South Oko and North Peters. South Oko sits 1.5 kilometres south of the Oko West project owned by Canadian firm G Mining Ventures Corp., making Altair the third explorer to enter the Oko corridor after GMIN and G2 Goldfields.
Chief Executive Officer Faheem Ahmed described the Greater Oko Project as a potential company maker for Altair, stating that what the company achieved by assembling a unique and strategic land package in Guyana is virtually impossible for any other party to replicate. Ahmed also praised Guyana’s economic trajectory, noting that the country has recorded the fastest GDP growth in the world for two consecutive years and that infrastructure development and rising mineral asset values in the coming years create a compelling environment for tier-one discovery.
SOURCE: Kaieteur News, “Guyana’s goldfields significantly underexplored, Australian gold firm,” May 19, 2026
