TSX mixed, Sept. 14-18

The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 0.15% to 16,198.97 during the Sept. 14-18 trading week. The S&P/TSX Global Mining Index rose 0.52% to 101.18, and the S&P/TSX Global Base Metals Index climbed 4.60% to 111.15. Spot gold rose US$8.80 per oz., or 0.45%, to US$1,948.90 per oz., and the S&P/TSX Global Gold Index dropped by 1.14% to 376.32.

MAG Silver rose $2.66 to $23.36 per share. The company announced an agreement to acquire 100% of the Deer Trail carbonate replacement deposit (CRD) in Piute County, Utah. The 5,600-hectare project encompasses the historic Deer Trail mine and Alunite Ridge area. This is the first time that the properties have been consolidated since the early 1980s, allowing MAG Silver to apply district-scale exploration on the property. The company’s geological model suggests that the high-grade silver, gold, lead, zinc, and copper CRD sulphides of the Deer Trail mine are linked by continuous mineralisation to a porphyry copper-molybdenum center lying to the west of Alunite Ridge. The company plans to conduct a phase I exploration drill program starting in October.

Shares of Teck Resources jumped $3.19 to $20.33. The company signed a long-term agreement that will provide its Carmen de Andacollo copper operation in central Chile with 100% renewable power, eliminating 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Under the agreement with AES Corp., the operation will be supplied with 72 MW annually from AES’s portfolio of wind, solar and hydroelectric energy starting this month until the end of 2031. Carmen de Andacollo currently has a mine life extending to 2035. The diversified miner has pledged to become a carbon neutral operator by 2050. To achieve that goal, it intends to source all the power for its Chilean operations from renewable sources by 2030 and reduce the carbon intensity of its operations by 33% by 2030.

Equinox Gold’s shares rose $1.87 to $17.05 per share. The company announced that it has completed construction of the Phase 1 mine at its Castle Mountain gold mine in California. Irrigation of the leach pad is underway and the company expects to pour first gold in the fourth quarter of the year. Pre-production mining began in June, and the company has stacked more than 1.4 million tonnes of mineralized material on the leach pad. Loaded carbon from Castle Mountain will be processed in the carbon stripping and smelting plant at the company’s Mesquite mine, 322 km to the south. The Castle Mountain Phase 1 mine is a fully-permitted, run-of-mine heap operation that will process around 12,700 tonnes of ore per day and produce an average of 45,000 oz. of gold a year. A feasibility study for the potential Phase 2 expansion, which is expected to produce 200,000 oz. of gold annually, is slated for completion by the end of the year.