Trading Summary (March 25, 2003)

Toronto’s mining subindices both headed south on Tuesday; the gold fell 0.93 of a point to 146.66 while the diversified miners dropped 0.05 of a point to 124.62. Overall, the S&P/TSX Composite Index managed to scrape together 20.92 points to make 6,384.96.

Wheaton River Minerals joined Northern Orion Explorations on the TSX’s leader board on Tuesday adding 13 to make $1.29 with about 3.7 million shares traded. Wheaton has agreed to take another 12.5% stake in the Bajo de la Alumbrera gold-copper mine in Argentina. Wheaton will team up with an unidentified arm’s-length third party to take a 25% stake off of BHP Billiton in return for US$180 million.

Northern Orion remained on investors’ view screens dropping half a penny to 18.5 on nearly 5.5 million shares. The company recently completed an oversubscribed private placement of 40 million units, each comprising one share and one non-transferable warrant, at a dime apiece. The warrants are good for one shares at 13 each for two years. Proceeds will help fund the first payment to acquire BHP Billiton’s 72% interest in the Agua Rica project in Argentina.

Meridian Gold managed to claw back 76 to reach $14.21 after shares tumbled in response to an overwhelming defeat in a non-binding referendum on the Esquel project, held in the city of Esquel on March 23.

Cambior ended a nickel higher at $1.67. The company has further reduced its hedge book by buying back 189,000 oz. gold from its hedging program at an average price of US$342 per oz.

Inco was the most traded base metal miner dropping 20 to $27.60 on about 1.45 million shares. The company’s shares are smarting from recent news that development costs at its Voisey’s Bay deposit are 14% higher than first thought. Alcan was the next in line with 885,257 shares finding their way 30 to $42.15.

Investors continued their Junior Exchange exodus as advancing stocks lost to declining stock 242 to 327. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index shed 2.94 points, or 0.28%, and closed at 1,042.20 with 27.3 million shares traded.

Spider Resources was the day’s volume leader with 1.6 million shares traded. The junior and joint venture partner, over the counter-listed, KWG Resources have launched a 1,000 metre diamond drilling program on their Spider #3 base metal prospect in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario. Spider remained steady at 12.

ECU Silver Mining tacked on 1 and closed at 6 with 484,000 shares traded. The company reinitiated production at the Santa Juana mine in Mexico and is focusing its initial work on three veins; the B, CC, and G1 veins.

IMA Exploration lost 3 and closed at $0.96 with 378,795 shares traded. Soil sampling has identified a highly anomalous area at its Navidad project in Patagonia, Argentina, that measures 1,200-by-500 metres with values consistently greater than 2 grams silver per tonne. These high silver values in soil samples correlate very well with anomalous copper (greater than 50 ppm) values. The soil samples were taken at 50 metre intervals along lines spaced 200 metres apart. IMA plans to increase the density and size of this soil grid in order to better define drill targets in combination with geological mapping, rock sampling, trenching, and geophysics.