Ovoca Resources will not pay an interim dividend to shareholders following a loss of £51,863 or 0.21p per share for the six months to the end of August.
The company should be in a position to make an announcement on its latest test drilling in Tipperary next month, according to chief executive Mr Frank Buckley. As the exploration company has no income and no operating costs, the loss reflected administrative expenses over the period. The latest outcome compared with administrative expenses and a loss of £33,125 in the corresponding six months of 1997.
The Ovoca share price has risen strongly since October on speculation that an announcement about a mineral find was imminent. In October the Ovoca share price rose strongly from 12p to a high of 32p when chairman Mr Paul Smithwick predicted at the company annual general meeting that the shares could reach 400p within a year on the back of a significant mineral find. But the Ovoca board later issued a statement to the stock exchange saying that this prediction "based on current information is totally unjustifiable". Mr Buckley said yesterday that test drilling in Tipperary was not yet completed.
"In the exploration sense it is a positive story but there is no reason for commercial excitement as yet," he said. Preliminary results from the test drilling are expected in January, he said. Recent "flurries" in the Ovoca shares price which pushed the share price up to a high 40p were based on "misinformation", he said. The company has nothing dramatic to announce at this stage but regards the situation as positive so far, he added. In a statement yesterday the company said that preliminary assessments "appear to indicate the probability of a significant geologic structure displacing the reef limestone at depth and follow up drilling will now take place to test particular anomalies on this probable structure". Ovoca raised £435,000 in a placing in July. Mr Buckley said Ovoca is continuing its zinc exploration programme and will start test drilling in the Galway/Roscommon next year. Earlier this year Ovoca abandoned its joint venture with the Canadian Group Paramount Ventures.
