ONGold Resources (TSXV: ONAU; US-OTC: ONGRF) has put Manitoba’s long-dormant Monument Bay gold project back on a current-resource footing after nearly a decade, outlining 2 million measured and indicated contained ounces.
The project in the province’s northeast hosts 74.4 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.84 gram gold per tonne for 2 million oz., while inferred resources hold 24.5 million tonnes at 0.62 gram gold for 491,000 oz., ONGold said Monday. The open-pit estimate uses a 0.2-gram cut-off and a $3,000-per-oz. gold price. About 80% of the contained gold is measured and indicated.
A comparison with a historical resource prepared in 2017 for past owner Yamana shows the current model carries substantially more tonnes but at lower grades and with fewer contained ounces.
Shares in ONGold Resources fell 11% on Monday morning in Toronto to 66¢ apiece, valuing the company at about $48.8 million. They’ve traded in a 52-week range of 47¢ to $1.37.
Changed hands
Monument Bay, near the Ontario border about 340 km southeast of Thompson, has changed hands several times since The Northern Miner last covered the project in 2015, when Mega Precious Metals was pursuing both gold and tungsten. Yamana Gold bought Mega later that year, Agnico Eagle Mines (TSX, NYSE: AEM) acquired the property with Yamana’s Canadian assets in 2023, and ONGold bought it from Agnico in late 2024.
ONGold says the new resource reflects a fresh geological and structural interpretation, core re-logging and additional assays, with SRK Consulting rebuilding the mineralization model and constraining the resource inside a new conceptual pit shell. See a 3-D image of drilling.
“The updated geological interpretation has greatly improved our understanding of the structural controls on mineralization and identified priority areas for additional resource drilling as the deposit remains open at depth,” CEO Kyle Stanfield said.
“We are encouraged by the opportunity to test mineralization at depth particularly along the eastern portion of the deposit where gold grades from historical drilling are demonstrably higher.”
Old vs new
The nine-year-old estimate put measured and indicated resources at 58 million tonnes grading 1.24 grams gold for 2.32 million oz., plus 24.4 million inferred tonnes at 0.92 gram gold for 720,000 oz. It used a higher 0.3-gram cut-off and a 2015 pit shell, and excluded the Mid-East and AZ zones. ONGold no longer considers that estimate current.
The new resource draws on 833 historical diamond holes totalling about 237,000 metres across the 4.2-km Twin Lakes shear zone. SRK identified several structural controls on higher-grade mineralization and modelled a series of higher-grade zones using a 1-gram threshold alongside a broader lower-grade envelope.
Mega had drilled 179 holes at Monument Bay before Yamana completed its $17.5-million takeover in June 2015. Yamana subsequently drilled almost 60,000 metres in 190 holes and generated several resource estimates while shifting some of its attention towards higher-grade shoots beneath the broad open-pit mineralization.
Agnico
The project’s last drilling before ONGold arrived was completed in April 2021. Agnico inherited Monument Bay when it acquired Yamana assets in March 2023 as part of the breakup of Yamana between Agnico and Pan American Silver (TSX, NYSE: PAAS).
ONGold acquired Monument Bay in December 2024 for $100,000 in cash and 8.7 million shares issued to Agnico, then worth about $4.2 million. Agnico can also receive as much as $21.5 million in milestone payments. The shares initially gave the senior miner about 15% of ONGold.
ONGold restarted field work after Red Sucker Lake First Nation, whose traditional territory includes Monument Bay, formally invited the company to resume exploration in early 2025 under a community consultation framework.
Tungsten
The new resource excludes tungsten, despite the metal being an important part of Monument Bay’s earlier exploration story.
When TNM covered Mega’s work in 2015, its then-current resource carried 248,000 tonnes of tungsten trioxide alongside the gold resource. Mega was re-assaying old core for tungsten and had found that some of the better tungsten mineralization overlapped higher-grade gold zones.
ONGold has returned to that idea. Its 2025-26 re-logging, infill sampling and pulp re-analysis program added about 13,900 tungsten assays to the database, largely from historical samples previously tested for gold but not systematically for tungsten. Higher-grade tungsten has again been found with higher-grade gold in parts of the deposit.
The company says the new gold block model will allow it to identify gaps in the tungsten database and determine whether the metal has sufficient continuity for eventual resource modelling. Tungsten, primarily occurring as scheelite at Monument Bay, is on Canada’s critical minerals list.
Deeper targets
SRK has proposed an initial 20-hole, 11,150-metre drill program focused on higher-grade zones in the central and eastern deposit, including mineralization beneath and outside the current pit shell. Much of Monument Bay remains lightly tested below about 300 metres vertical depth.
One target is the eastern Lake Shoot, where historical hole TL16-575 returned 132 metres at 6.15 grams gold , including 2.75 metres grading 163.92 grams gold.
True widths haven’t been determined. SRK proposes directing roughly half of its initial drilling towards the eastern part of the deposit.
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