MINING MARKET & INVESTMENT NEWS — WESTERN MARKETS –Winspear hits high note as Major General slumps

During the report period ended June 1, the Vancouver Stock Exchange composite index was off 4.93 points to close at 452.71. The mining index slipped 1.88 points to finish at 311.64, while the combined value of the Alberta Stock Exchange rose 16.4 points on the week to finish at 2,434.2.

Winspear Resources hit an all-time high of $5.30 before pulling back to $4.85, a gain of 92 cents. There was no shortage of speculation over results of the first batch of bulk samples from the NW Snap lake kimberlite dyke. Those results are still pending. During the report period, the company announced that all shareholders registered as of May 26 will receive 0.125 of a Diamondex Resources share for each Winspear share. Diamondex is being spun off to hold all of the company’s early-stage exploration properties, with the exception of Camsell Lake.

KRL Resources jumped 25 cents in heavy trading to close at 44 cents. The company is drilling a volcanogenic massive sulphide prospect at its wholly owned Copper Hill property near Timmins, Ont. A contact zone between hydrothermally altered rhyolite and basalt has been mapped along a length of 1,500 metres. Drilling in the 1960s by Mokta Canada tested the western end of the zone with two short holes, which intersected massive to semi-massive pyrite bodies up to 5 metres thick. KRL’s first hole intersected three separate zones of massive to semi-massive pyrite mineralization hosted in basalt. The zones range in thickness from 16 to 42 metres. Discontinuous concentrations of chalcopyrite are noted in the core. Assay results are pending.

Alberta-listed Starfield Resources hit a high of $2.34 before falling back to $1.65, a 42 cents gain. The company has completed a $500,000 first-phase exploration program, including five drill holes, on the Ferguson Lake copper-nickel deposit in Nunavut Territory. Assays for the deposit, which has never been tested for platinum group metals, are pending.

Guilford Brett-led Pacific Bay Minerals was up 16 cents at 25 cents. The company received a geological report recommending a $145,000 first-phase program of geological mapping and sampling at its grassroots claims in Alaska, 190 km southeast of the Pogo deposit.

Since hitting a high of 45 cents several weeks ago on news of drill results from the joint-ventured Despinassy gold project in Quebec, Major General Resources has been losing ground. The issue closed the latest period at 26 cents, a loss of 7 cents. In company news, McWatters Mining dropped its option to acquire the Hammerdown gold property in Newfoundland. However, Major General began field work on its Spider Lake VMS project near Terrace Bay, Ont.