Goldquest drops 33% on drill results

Goldquest Mining (GQC-V), which has seen a substantial boost in its share price after discovering the Romero target in late May, slipped 33% on the target’s latest drill results.

The Vancouver-based firm on Sept. 27 published the results from three more holes from Romero, which is part of its Las Tres Palmas gold-copper project in the Dominican Republic.

Some notable intercepts include 146 metres grading 0.42 gram gold per tonne and 0.74% copper from LTP-99 and 123 metres carrying 2.50 grams gold and 0.33% copper in LTP-100. The latter hole bottomed at 476 metres depth, representing the deepest mineralization to date at the high-grade target. It also contained a 44-metre interval of 5.97 grams gold and 0.53% copper, the highest grading gold intercept of the batch.

All the intercepts provided are based on bottom and top cutoffs of 0.15 gram gold and 50 grams respectively. (The uncut gold grades for these assays tend to be slightly higher.) The company notes all three holes like the previously released seven ended in mineralization, meaning the target is still open at depth as well as in all other directions. 

While the latest results appear decent on their own, they pale in comparison to the hits reported previously.

Following the discovery hole in late May that returned 2.4 grams gold and 0.44% copper over 231 metres, including 18.25 grams gold and 2.14% copper over 12 metres, the junior released some more appealing high-grade gold sections from Romero.

For examples it reported 6.2 metres of 74.11 grams gold and 16.9 metres grading 34.64 grams from LTP-93. When the 50-gram cutoff was applied the gold grades dropped to 37.94 grams and 20.81 grams, respectively.  

Over the last four months, the stock has soared as the previous results left investors cheering, and gradually bumping the stock up.

Goldquest shares went from 7.5¢ on May 22, the day prior to the Romero discovery, to reach a year high of $2.03 on Aug. 21, representing a growth of around 2,600%, before settling until recently into the $1.80 range.

To date Goldquest has published assays for 10 of the 12 holes it has completed on the target. In early September, it said it was drilling three more holes and had a fourth one planned.

On the results, the junior lost 33% or 60¢ to end the day at $1.23 on 12.8 million shares traded.