Shares in Nicaragua-focused gold explorer Oro Verde dipped in Monday trading despite the company hitting a “bonanza” gold zone at Topacio gold project.

The stock closed the day at 0.8c, down 0.1c or 11 per cent, after announcing maiden drilling at the Mico target intersected up to 32 grams per tonne near surface from final holes in phase two drilling program.

Drilling took place for the first time at the Mico West vein and intersected a 2.85 metre mineralised interval averaging 15.59 grams per tonne gold including 1.23m at 32.3 grams per tonne gold around 20 metres below surface.

“The bonanza gold grades intersected at Mico West provide significant encouragement for expansion of the existing Topacio gold resource,” Oro Verde (ASX:OVL) managing director Trevor Woolfe said.

“This high-grade gold intercept is located around 500m to the west-southwest along strike from the nearest resource drilling at Mico East.”

The company was planning to test this undrilled segment and a number of other identified high grade targets.

The second phase of drilling consisted of 402 meters of diamond drilling and was designed to test gold mineralisation in veins that lie outside, but near, the historical 340,000 ounce Topacio gold resource.

Oro Verde holds an option to purchase agreement to acquire the Topacio project which contains an historical NI 43-101 (Canadian standard) compliant inferred resource of 2.7 million tonnes at 3.9 grams per tonne gold containing 340,345 ounces of gold at a 1.5 grams per tonne gold cut-off.

The company also wholly owns the early-stage San Isidro gold project in Nicaragua.