TSX Venture at seven-month high, March 14-18

The rally in commodity markets is stoking the S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index, gaining 0.8%, or 4.47 points, to a 580.82-point close.

Spot gold traded near its one-year high, closing up 0.4% to US$1,255 per oz., while the U.S. Federal Reserve signalled it may lift interest rates more slowly than previously indicated.

Three-month London Metal Exchange copper contracts rose US$140 per tonne, or 2.8%, to US$5,070 per tonne on improved market sentiment in China, which saw a 56% bump in February copper imports compared to a year earlier.

Fjordland Exploration took fifth spot in the greatest percentage change category, gaining 250% to a 4¢ close after news that the company acquired 262 sq. km of ground for diamond exploration in Saskatchewan’s Western Athabasca basin.

Fjordland is behind CanAlaska Uranium as the second junior explorer to recognize the potential for diamonds in a district that’s known for uranium mineralization.

The interest was spurred by government-sourced geophysical surveys, which highlighted shallow and circular magnetic anomalies that could be consistent with kimberlite intrusive bodies cutting through the magnetic-neutral Athabasca sandstones.

Fjordland said that exploration in the region would “most logically be a second, more detailed airborne survey.”

Orefinders Resources saw 15.3 million shares traded before closing up 3¢ at 6¢ per share, on news that the company has exercised its option and acquired the MZ group of claims. The claims form the westerly extension of the company’s Mirado deposit, 35 km southeast of Kirkland Lake in northeastern Ontario.

Trenching by the company returned 4.8 metres true width at 21.8 grams gold per tonne within a few metres of Mirado’s conceptual pit limit, which SRK modelled in 2013. The shear and sedimentary-hosted deposit has 10.6 million inferred tonnes of 1.29 grams gold for 442,000 oz. gold, using a 0.45-gram gold cut-off.

Kennady Diamonds topped the value-added category, jumping 43¢ to a $3.38 per share after finding a third kimberlite at its Faraday prospect, part of the company’s Kennady North diamond project in the Northwest Territories.

Three exploration holes have been drilled at the discovery, with the latest hole intersecting more than 55 metres of kimberlite from 57 metres below surface.

Faraday 3 is the fourth kimberlite body found at the project over the past three years.

The company is scheduled to complete a 500-tonne bulk sample from the Kelvin North Lobe kimberlite by mid-2016, where a 0.9-tonne sample returned 3.55 carats per tonne.