Dominican delivers for Goldquest and Unigold

VANCOUVER — Dominican-focused explorers Goldquest Mining (GQC-V) and Unigold (UGD-V) have announced sizable step-out gold hits at their nearby properties in the country on the same day.

For Goldquest, the results from hole LTP 92 are the first of many much-anticipated follow-up holes to its May 16 discovery hit of 231 metres grading 2.4 grams gold at its Romero target.

Vertical hole LTP 92, drilled 25 metres west of discovery hole LTP 90, returned an upper intercept of 53.8 metres grading 0.63 gram gold per tonne and 0.02% copper from 28 metres downhole, and a middle intercept of 24 metres grading 7.5 grams gold and 0.86% copper starting at 120 metres depth. But the clear stand out was a lower intercept of 159.5 metres grading 4.45 grams gold and 0.95% copper from 213 metres down. With an arbitrary top cut of 50 grams gold, the 160-metre interval still comes in at 4.14 grams gold.

The hole is similar to the profile of hole LPT 90, with an upper unit of lower grades followed by a deeper unit of higher grade gold and copper, though thanks to deeper drilling hole LTP 92 extends the known mineralization by 138 metres depth.

Goldquest’s Romero discovery sits about 500 metres from its field headquarters in the village of Hondo Valle, while the Las Tres Palmas project itself sits about 40 km southeast of Unigold’s Candelones project on the border with Haiti.  

Unigold made a big discovery on an extension of its Candelones project in January, but the latest results show the highest grades yet. Hole LP28 returned 77 metres grading 3.81 grams gold, 6.16 grams silver, 0.1% copper and 1.09% zinc from 263 metres depth, and included a 15-metre intercept grading 16.36 grams gold from 263 metres and a 6-metre interval within that carrying 32.69 grams gold.

“The grades on this one have been an absolute pleasure,” said Unigold CEO Andrew Cheatle in a phone interview. “We’ve not hit anything like 15 metres of half-an-ounce.”

Unigold drilled hole LP28 as a 100-metre step-out to the southwest, with the hole sitting 200 metres west of discovery hole LP17 that returned 109 metres grading 1.70 grams gold from 252 metres depth in January.

Since making its big discovery in January Unigold has been drilling 100-metre step-outs in a grid pattern and pulling several encouraging gold hits. Other results so far include hole LP23 that returned 70 metres grading 2.10 grams gold from 191 metres depth, hole LP26 that cut 41 metres grading 1.44 grams gold from 312 metres depth, and hole LP22A that returned 80 metres averaging 1.6 grams gold.

“It’s very rare to be able to step out at 100 metres and be able to hit the way we are,” Cheatle said of drill program so far. “It’s clearly a multi-million-oz. play here.”

Cheatle noted that the grade-thickness plot clearly correlates to the geophysics, and shows that the deposit is still very much open to the east, west, and south. The company has so far identified mineralization over a 1 km by 400 metre area on the VMS/epithermal discovery.

Unigold is currently working through a 12-month, 40,000-metre drill program on the project and has completed about 10,000 metres so far. With three rigs on site, including two brand-new ones, the company is managing to drill between 60 and 100 metres a day, but Cheatle said there is discussions about potentially ramping up the program if funding can be secured. Cheatle said the project could easily take many more rigs.

“This project could easily handle six to ten drill rigs now. If I was say Goldcorp and they had this, I’d be expecting to drill this out with 10 drill rigs, and not wasting metres,” Cheatle said.

As it stands, Unigold has about $8 million in the bank thanks to a $10.5-million raise in early March.

Goldquest is also fairly cashed up for now thanks to a $6.6-million financing in June and recently started operating a second drill rig at its Romero project. The first rig on site was fairly portable but was only capable of drilling down to about 400 metres depth, leading to both holes released so far ending in mineralization.

Hole LP93, drilled 25 metres east of discovery hole LP90, should be out shortly, with 25-metre step-out holes to the north and south also completed. The company has contracted a third rig that can reach down to 700 metres depth to better test the deep ground geophysical anomalies and geological potential at depth.

Goldquest, which had already seen its share price climb from 5¢ in mid-May to 98¢ before the latest news, climbed a further 22¢ or 22.4% to $1.20 on results from hole LP92 with 7.6 million shares traded. The company has 125 million shares outstanding or 142 million fully diluted.

Unigold, which spiked from around 17¢ to a brief high of 48¢ on its January discovery, climbed 7¢ or 20% to 42¢ on the latest news with 3.7 million shares traded. The company has 209 million shares outstanding or 256 million fully diluted.