Vancouver Stock Exchange Prime manages to hold its ground

The Vancouver Stock Exchange ushered in October by racking up its worst trading day in eight years. To top that off, the VSE composite index fell to an all-time low of 588.99 for the week ended Oct. 2. At noon today, Oct. 3, the composite index had inched its way even lower to 588.80. “It’s a sick market,” said Don Poirier, a resource analyst with Brink Hudson & Lefever. “The phones just aren’t ringing.” Analysts offer an assortment of factors to blame for the current market slump. The recession and Middle East crisis. New discoveries in northwestern British Columbia weren’t as spectacular and prolific as hoped. The prospect of more bad press from New York media that seem to overlook the big stories in their own messy backyard (remember the junk bond binge?). The length of times it is taking British Columbia securities regulators to come down with a decision in the Pezim hearings. Pezim’s decision to leave town and wash his hands off the VSE, at least until a ruling is handed down. Justifiable fears of an New Democratic Party victory in the next provincial election. The list goes on.

Despite all this, there were some bright spots in Vancouver this past week. Adrian Resources lost 60 cents to $2.20, but it managed to regain 50 cents to settle at $2.70 recently. Spectacular assay results were released from initial underground sampling of the 21B deposit at Eskay Creek. The sampling was done on a portion of the deposit within the TOK claim gap held by Adrian’s Ski project. Wall-chip assays here indicated a grade-width return of 1.56 oz. gold and 40.5 oz. silver per ton over a 32.8-ft. width. Prime Resources Group, which is carrying out the underground program at Eskay Creek, managed to hold its ground at $5.37.

The most active issues over our report period were two companies in Pezim’s Prime group of juniors that are involved in what appears to be promising exploration projects in northwestern British Columbia: Avondale Resources and Consolidated Rhodes Resources.

Avondale slipped 3 cents to 44 cents after reporting results from underground drilling on the Inel gold project in the Iskut River region of northwestern British Columbia. Results were mixed, with the best hole returning a 24.3-ft. interval grading 1.19 oz. gold, 1.39 oz. silver per ton and 0.87% zinc. Avondale can earn a 50% interest in this project from Gulf International Minerals. Reg Davis (formerly of Skyline Explorations) came out of retirement to once again take the reins at Gulf. The issue slipped 8 cents to 62 cents.

Consolidated Rhodes dropped 21 cents to settle at $1.40. The company is drilling Canamax Resources’ Copper Canyon copper- gold project in the remote Galore Creek region, north of the Iskut River area. Drilled by Amax in the 1950s, the project has preliminary reserves estimated at 29.0 million tons grading 0.7% copper, 0.30 oz. silver and 0.01 oz. gold.

Moondust Ventures, headed by former Granges executive John Toporowski, got a boost of 20 cents to $1.50 after reporting on the progress of a drilling program taking place on the Webb claims near Continental Gold’s Mt. Milligan gold-copper deposit. No assay results were released, however. Partner Grand American Minerals lost 4 cents to 81 cents.

El Condor Resources lost a whopping $1.35 to $1.24, although the company said there has been no material changes in the affairs of the company to account for this decrease. El Condor is drilling a copper-gold prospect in the Toodoggone area of northern British Columbia.