MINING MARKETS & INVESTMENT NEWS — Base metal majors perform despite weak prices — Most gold miners up as yellow metal stages minor comeback; settlement sparks SouthernEra

The Toronto Stock Exchange enjoyed a broad trading range during the June 17-23 report period, with the TSE 300 composite index dropping marginally to 7,175.23 points. Both mining sub-groups fell more than 3% during a relatively quiet news week, with the metals-and-minerals index dropping to 3,504.24 points and its gold-and-precious-metals counterpart slipping to 5,926.14 points.

Despite the continued sluggishness of base metal prices, most majors in that sector posted gains throughout the week: Noranda was up 30 cents to $24.75; Falconbridge rose $1.15 to $16.95; Rio Algom climbed $1.60 to $21.20; Boliden rose 70 cents to $7.95; and Cominco was up $2.40 to $21.25.

Not so lucky were Inco, which dropped 15 cents to $20.05 and Teck, which slipped 40 cents to $16.34.

Gold staged a bit of comeback during the week, climbing US$5.50 to reach a London morning fix of US$293.90. The rise pulled up several of the gold majors: Barrick Gold jumped $1.55 to $26.95; Placer Dome was up 40 cents to $16.75; TVX Gold climbed 35 cents to $4.65; and Cambior rose a dime to $8.70. Meanwhile, Agnico-Eagle Mines held steady at $7.95 and Kinross Gold slumped 10 cents to $5.

Toronto-based NAR Resources climbed $1.35 to $5.65 as the junior released encouraging drill results from a copper-zinc-silver prospect in northeastern Zimbabwe. By funding the exploration program, NAR is earning an interest from owner-operator Falconbridge. Tandem Resources, which owns 30% of NAR, rose only 3 cents to 40 cents.

The brief rally that Crystallex International stock enjoyed last week turned out to be a dead-cat bounce, as the stock dropped 35 cents through the week to hit a near all-time low of $1.18. The stock traded at $6 before the share price collapsed in mid-June, when the Venezuelan Supreme Court finally put an end to Crystallex’s tenuous ownership claims to parts of Placer Dome’s Las Cristinas deposit.

Diamond miner SouthernEra surged back from a 2-year low, rising $1.85 to $6.65 as the implications of last week’s Marsfontein property settlement with De Beers Consolidated Mines and Randgold & Exploration began to sink in.

Following a year-long decline, Montreal-based ITEC-Mineral rose 10 cents to 28 cents on a single day of heavy trading. In early June, the company acquired the Gold Hill mill, west of Boulder, Colo., where it plans to re-process waste rock once the mill has been refurbished and expanded.

Platinova rose 11 cents to 47 cents. The junior was recently awarded an exploration concession on a zinc showing discovered by Greenland government geologists last summer. Shares of the Greenland diamond explorer had been plummeting in value since February, when it traded above $1.60.

Montreal-based Globex Mining, which traded at $5 a year ago, sunk from above $1.50 in early June to $1 before trading was halted on June 22. The next day, the company announced that it had intersected 19.6 metres (from 1,167 metres) of massive and semi-massive copper and zinc sulphides at its Lyndhurst mine property near Rouyn-Noranda, Que. Alberta-listed Amblin Resources, which rose 10 cents to 60 cents, is earning a half-interest in the property by spending $3.9 million.