Canada’s Venture Exchange gains ground

Vancouver — Weak consumer confidence plus the threat of rising U.S. interest rates helped bolster the gold market over the week ended Aug. 27. The TSX Venture Exchange composite index tacked on 12.45 points, or 1.2% of its value, to close at 1014.33.

Bishop Resources tacked on 2 and closed at 6 with 2.2 million shares changing hands. The company decided to cancel its proposed change-of-business plan and remain in the resource sector. Bishop has a 100% interest in the 3.7-sq.-km Gordon Lake gold property, 80 km northeast of Yellowknife.

Diagem International Resources remained flat at 17 with 1.1 million shares traded. Bulk testing on the junior diamond explorer’s 108 property in Brazil yielded 888 diamonds weighing 75.45 carats, with sizes up to 2.05 carats. Results from other test pits are expected shortly.

Breckenridge Resources remained flat at 1 with 1.1 million shares exchanged. The junior holds a small interest in the Ana gold-copper prospect in the Yukon, which is operated by Wildrose Resources. The company also has a 30% interest in three mineral claims on the Warburton Bay diamond project in the Northwest Territories. Breckenridge recently dropped its Xiacun silver-base metals project in China.

Pan Asia Mining tacked on a penny and closed at 4 with just over 1 million shares traded. The company is exploring for diamonds on four parcels of land in the southern part of the Shandong province in China. Plans call for further soil sampling, high-resolution magnetic and resistivity surveys, and, if warranted, pitting, trenching and drilling.

Loubel Explorations closed at 8, up 1, with 814,000 shares changing hands. The junior’s joint-venture partner, Toronto-listed Inmet Mining, has kicked off an 8,000-metre drilling program at the Lemoine project, near Chibougamau, Que. Two drill machines are spinning and testing a series of targets along the same stratigraphic horizon that hosted the past-producing Lemoine mine, from which 758,070 tonnes of massive sulphides were extracted, from 1975 to 1983, grading 4.2% copper and 9.6% zinc, plus 4.2 grams gold and 83.4 grams silver per tonne.

Anooraq Resources closed at 85, up 3 on a volume of 751,000 shares. Results from the first two holes drilled into the western side of the Rietfontein property in South Africa cut up to 19.6 metres grading 0.19% nickel, 0.15% copper and 0.63 gram combined platinum-palladium-gold.

Starfield Resources closed at 43, up 3 on 680,000 shares. The company is currently drilling its wholly owned Ferguson Lake nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM property in Nunavut.

Oasis Diamond Exploration, Iciena Ventures and Arctic Star Diamond recently received geochemical and diamond results from 11 rock samples and three drill core samples from its Enigma diamond project near Wawa, Ont. Geochemical analysis indicates that the rocks are metamorphosed kimberlites. The 11 samples returned a total of 253 diamonds. Oasis remained flat at 7 with 569,000 shares traded, while Iciena Ventures lost a penny and closed at 24 with 596,000 shares traded. Arctic Star Diamonds closed unchanged at 24 with 103,000 shares traded.