The Romero gold-copper project - one of the more interesting discoveries in recent years - is moving ahead at a clip.

That much was clear from a recent CEO.ca exchange between Joe Mazumdar of Exploration Insights and GoldQuest Executive Chairman Bill Fisher.

Fisher laid out strategy and mapped the road ahead on the Romero project, which GoldQuest owns. 

GoldQuest made the discovery back in 2012 and is now on the cusp of finishing a prefeasibility study of the project, which is due out in May. The junior counts some 2.4 million ounces gold-equivalent in indicated resources, with additional inferred resources.

"The key here, when access to capital is limited, is to get yourself into production in the smallest, cheapest way possible," Fisher tells Mazumdar. "Then, if the market develops, you have plenty of options for expansion."

For GoldQuest the idea - as initially outlined in a 2015 PEA - is to design an operation that starts out at 2,500 tonnes per day but with expansion potential to 3,500 tonnes per day in an underground bulk mining scenario with low operating costs. Life of mine production is to total 750,000 ounces gold, 134 million pounds copper and 526,000 ounces silver from 7.7 million tonnes feed with a diluted grade of 5.39 g/t AuEq.

This scenario has yielded an impressive 34% IRR in a 2015 PEA on a mining project with capital expenditures around $143 million. The expectation is for something broadly similar in the coming PFS.

A feasibility study will come fast on the heels of the PFS - done by year-end, Fisher says. GoldQuest is fully funded to that point. (GoldQuest has about $4 million and announced a $3-million private placement March 15, after the above video was shot.)

Meantime, the exploration team is busy outlining new targets on the 50-km belt of rocks that has had relatively little exploration done on it. Geophysics - which drove the Romero discovery - will be key.

It all sets the stage in Fisher's quest to see his core team do it again.

Fisher, among others on his team, developed and sold another copper-gold project in the Dominican Republic back in 2008 to Perilya for $186 million.

This, Fisher notes, gives GoldQuest an advantage in the Dominican Republic when showing stakeholders its vision for Romero.

"With the new discovery we've made we take the local politicians to see the mine we've already built," Fisher says.

Goldquest (GQC-V)
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This is not investment advice and all investors need to do their own due diligence.