Ovoca Gold hires contractor for Rassoshinskaya diamond drill programme, appoints new CFO

Ovoca Gold (AIM: OVG) has contracted a drilling company to start the planned diamond drill programme at the Rassoshinskaya property in April, and announced the appointments of a new chief financial officer, a non-exceutive director  and a corporate secretary.

The company has hired Dukat Geological Expedition Company (DGGK) to conduct the 8,000 metre surface drill programme at Rassoshinskaya in Russia's far eastern Magadan region, which has the primary objective of expanding the resource potential of the Olcha ore body on the property both along strike and at depth. Ovoca has also planned a 7,000 metre trenching programme, which is expected to start in late June, the majority of which will be conducted at the Podgomensky ore district to identify drilling targets for the future.

“The start of drilling mobilization at Rassoshinskaya is particularly exciting as it marks the beginning of work on this highly prospective project under the banner of Ovoca Gold. There is significant equipment on site left from the vendors of the property, which allows us a very short lead time from mobilization to drilling,” said chief executive of Ovoca Tim McCutcheon.

The drill and trench season is expected to last until September. Ovoca is now preparing to undertake mobilization for Nevsko-Pestrinskoye, expecting to complete it by the end of Q2.

The company has also announced changes to its management team, appointing Svetlana Radchenko as CFO and Kirill Golovanov as corporate secretary to replace Danesh Varma, who served as both CFO and corporate secretary before stepping down. Radchenko has previously served as a financial advisor at Ovoca, while Golovanov served as corporate advisor and later as manager of the company’s Russian representative office. Ovoca has also added former BHP Billiton (LSE: BLT, ASX:BHP) exploration manager Donald Schissel as a non-executive director.

Ovoca had a total cash and securities position of US$45.7 million at 29 March 2010, including 1.5 million shares in Polymetal worth at closing 29 March 2010 US$16.1 million.

The company completed the acquisition of 100% of ZAO Bulun, OOO Magsel and OOO Olymp and has so far paid the equity portion of the transaction totalling US$7 million and has partially paid the assumed debt of US$7.5 million with US$2.5 million of this debt currently outstanding.

Shares in the company added 6.5% on the news.

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