RAMINVEST defines six drill targets after bonanza gold assays in Mauritania

RAMINVEST Holding said on 10 September 2026 that it has defined six priority targets, named T-01 through T-06, for first-pass drill testing at its Wompou gold project in Mauritania, after surface sampling returned assay values as high as 50.14 grams per tonne gold. The 446 sq km project, held under Exploration Permit 2265B2 through the group's Mauritanian subsidiary, sits within the Mauritanides Belt, a geological trend that hosts several of the country's known gold occurrences.

Arsenic as a guide to gold

Statistical analysis of the sampling data found a strong correlation, with a coefficient of 0.989, between arsenic and gold, allowing the company to use arsenic as a pathfinder element to refine its target definition ahead of drilling. RAMINVEST says the next stage of work will include field verification, more detailed geological and geochemical mapping, and targeted drilling, subject to the necessary technical and regulatory approvals, before it can move toward resource definition.

Why it matters

Mauritania's gold sector has historically been dominated by a single large mine, Kinross's Tasiast, and the government has been actively encouraging exploration elsewhere in the country to diversify beyond that single asset, including granting Canada's Montage Gold more than 2,100 sq km of permits elsewhere in the country earlier in 2026. A high-grade surface discovery like Wompou, even at an early stage, adds to the case that Mauritania's broader gold potential, which the government has previously estimated at more than 25 million ounces, remains substantially untested.

What happens next

Wompou remains firmly at the surface-sampling stage rather than having any drill-confirmed resource, so the value of the discovery will not be clear until RAMINVEST completes drill testing of the six targets it has identified and, if results justify it, moves toward an initial resource estimate.

Sources

• PR Newswire: RAMINVEST HOLDING Advances Mauritania Gold Exploration Following 50.14 g/t Gold Assays at Wompou Project, 10 Sept 2026

Photo: The Sahara desert in Mauritania, where the Wompou gold project is being explored. John Atherton, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.