Bulls beat bears on Venture exchange

Vancouver — Canada’s junior exchange was in a bullish mood over the report period ended Nov. 12. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index gained 22.18 points, or 2.37%, to finish the week at 955.18.

Investors snapped up shares in Canadian Royalties following news of the latest drill results from the Mesamax northwest grid area on the Expo-Ungava property in northern Quebec. Hole 18 returned 49.3 metres grading 3.32% nickel, 4% copper and 0.13% cobalt, plus 1.5 grams platinum, 5.17 grams palladium and 0.26 gram gold per tonne. A second mineralized zone was encountered deeper down-hole, yielding 1.85% nickel, 2.23% copper, 0.06% cobalt, 0.58 gram platinum, 1.2 grams palladium and 0.04 gram gold over 2.3 metres. Shares in the junior soared 61 and closed the week at $2.01 on a volume of nearly 3.2 million.

American Bonanza Gold Mines jumped 4 and closed at 17 with 2.9 million shares changing hands. The company recently optioned a half-interest in its Nevada Gold Bar and Pamlico properties to American Nevada Gold. American Nevada just kicked off a 900-metre drilling campaign in the underground workings of the B-Zero adit of the Central mine area at Pamlico. American Nevada closed the week at 10, up 2.

International Wayside Gold Mines found a penny and closed at 10 on 1.8 million shares. The Frank Callaghan-led company is adding more ground to its stable of properties in the Wells area of northern British Columbia. In its latest move, the company can earn a stake in properties located south of its Bonanza Ledge gold discovery on Barkerville Mountain.

Andean American Mining closed up 3 to $1.13 with almost 1.1 million shares changing hands. The company is exploring the Carelo zone of its Santa Rosa property in southern Peru. The junior is generating positive cash flow from the open-pit zone, a structurally controlled epithermal deposit, also on the Santa Rosa property.

Ventures Resources held steady at 2 with no shares traded. The company holds ground north and south of Toronto- listed NovaGold’s Donlin Creek deposit. At last report, the junior announced a 10-for-1 share rollback. The company now has 12.2 million shares outstanding.

Arctic Star Diamond tacked on 2 and closed at 26 with 945,000 shares traded. The company, together with partners Oasis Diamond Exploration and Iciena Ventures, hold the Ontario Diamond project, near Wawa. At last report, the companies had contracted diamond specialist Malcolm McCallum to visit the Enigma and MZ2002 site to complete mapping, trenching and follow-up drilling — all designed to verify the existence of commercial-size diamonds. Oasis remained flat at 5 while Iciena closed at 17, down a penny.

Spider Resources closed the week at 5, down 1 on 935,000 shares. While drilling for diamonds on the Spider 3 project in Ontario, De Beers intersected sulphides. Spider Resources and partner KWG Resources reported an 8-metre intersection that averaged 1.61% copper, 0.34% zinc, 0.13% lead, 9.9 grams silver and 0.13 gram gold per tonne. The hole reportedly ended in sulphide mineralization.