Ovoca Gold (LON:OVG) said it is confident it can continue to “add ounces” to its Olcha gold project in Russia.
Last month the group unveiled a maiden JORC inferred resource of 344,000 ounces at the Olcha project in the Magdan region of the country.
“Operationally, things have been going well,” said chief executive Tim McCutcheon.
“At Olcha we have completed almost 8,000 metres of drilling and the season has until the end of this month for active operations.
Ovoca produced maiden JORC Inferred resource for Olcha, in the Rassoshinskaya licensed area, of 344,000 ounces of gold.
“This resource only takes into account data collected before Ovoca acquired the property and will be updated with new data later this year.
“At the end of August we announced some preliminary results of drilling at Olcha, which were very positive and demonstrate that the resource has the grade and interval to be economic. Our main task now is to continue to define the ore body and 'put ounces on the books'."
The company also said its share consolidation and stock buy-back programme were having the “desired effect” as it gave an upbeat assessment of prospects after a solid six months of progress.
The period to the end of June included the purchase of three companies that own the Nevsko Pestrinskoye, Stakhanovsky and Rassoshinskaya licences in Magdan.
It also sold its Norplat operation in Murmansk to Black Foxes Resources for US$1.25 million.
The sale proceeds will add to the company’s coffers. Currently it has cash and equivalents of US$47.3 million, after offloading its Goltsovoye silver asset last year.
This has allowed Ovoca to bankroll the repurchase of 10 per cent of its equity base.
The company has also initiated a share consolidation on a one-for-five basis.
Ovoca posted pre-tax profits of 926,000 euros in the six months ended June 30 compared with a 6.2 million euro surplus a year ago.
The Russia-focused gold explorer made a number of boardroom appointments during the first six months of the year. Svetlana Radchenko comes in as chief financial officer and Kirill Golovanov has been appointed corporate secretary.
Don Schissel, an ex-BHP Billiton regional exploration manager, was named a non-executive director.