Active Commonwealth Gold finalizing property agreements

Western markets remained little changed during the period ended July 28. The Vancouver Stock Exchange resource index closed down 4.51 points to 554.55 and the composite index slipped 3.83 points to the 578 level.

The Alberta Stock Exchange managed to add a modest 0.86 points to close at 835.47.

Gold made a small gain during the week; the LME morning close today (July 29) for the precious metal was US$358.20 per oz.

Although gold bugs are heralding recent gains as the start of a new bull market, many analysts are cautious, noting that the gains are primarily the result of a fall in the U.S. dollar relative to German and Japanese currencies.

Commonwealth Gold topped the most-active list, trading more than 1.8 million shares to close up 13 cents to 35 cents. The company is in the process of finalizing joint venture agreements on two properties to the southeast of the Point Lake diamond discovery in the Lac de Gras region of the Northwest Territories.

San Andreas Resources managed to hold on to the previous week’s gains, finishing at $5.87.

Drilling on the company’s Prairie Creek property in the Northwest Territories returned a number of high-grade lead-zinc-silver intersections, including a 20.7-ft. interval grading 20.4% lead, 28.8% zinc and 8.4 oz. silver per ton. Drilling on the property is continuing in an attempt to expand preliminary reserves estimated to be about two million tons grading 10.8% lead, 11.8% zinc, 0.42% copper and 5.3 oz. silver.

Partners Western Copper Holdings and Thermal Exploration were unable to hang on to recent gains after releasing trenching results from a new copper zone on their Williams Creek property in the Yukon.

The trenching returned 0.56-0.70% copper over widths ranging from 25 ft. to 95 ft. Western Copper slipped 30 cents to close at $1.40, while Thermal finished down 9 cents to 51 cents.

The announcement of plans to begin “diamond hunting with a major” did little to help partners Calco Resources and Teryl Resources.

The companies have hired Kennecott Canada to do an airborne geophysical survey over their Amad property about 20 miles from Dia Met’s much-referred-to diamond find in the Northwest Territories. Calco finished down 3 cents to 13 cents while Teryl remained unchanged at 25 cents. Silverspar Minerals managed to reverse a steady decline from its recent high of $12.12, bouncing off a low of $8.25 to close at $8.87.

The company is in the process of arranging financing for further development of its fluorite-silver property in Arizona.

Reflecting the generally poor fortunes of the junior resource industry, a number of companies managed by Prime Equities announced share consolidations, including Crusader Gold on the basis of 1-for-2.5, and International Impala Resources, Pass Lake Resources and Toltec Resources, all on the basis of 1-for-5.

Yellow Point Mining and Riviera Explorations both lost ground during the week. The two companies, in a joint venture with a private Czechoslovakian company, have the right to explore, develop and mine the Kasperske Hory property in Czechoslovakia.

A recent geological report on the property gives a preliminary estimate for reserves of about 4.9 million tons grading 0.23 oz. gold. Yellow Point lost 11 cents to close at 65 cents, while Riviera finished down 19 cents to 60 cents.