Soaring metals propel Venture board to 8.5-year high

Reaching levels not seen since early 1997, the S&P-TSX Venture Composite Index rallied to an 8.5-year high, gaining a slim 0.12 points to close the Sept. 20-26 trading session at 2069.93. Average daily trading volumes remained strong at 50.3 million shares over the week.

Junior mining company breakouts gained momentum over the session, with 46 touching new 52-week highs, versus 68 companies dropping to annual lows.

Volume leader for the week was Forest Gate Resources, trading over 4.2 million shares and gaining a nickel to close at 42 per share. The company’s wholly owned subsidiary Blue Note Metals, which holds a 10% interest in Ursa Major Minerals, and brokerage firm Northern Securities have joined forces to oppose a planned deal regarding Ursa’s Shakespeare nickel-copper project. Under the deal, Ursa intends to divide interest in the Sudbury-area project on a 60/40 basis, with North American Palladium acquiring the majority stake by funding a feasibility study. Blue Note claims it is considering an offer for all or a portion of the remaining Ursa shares. Forest Gate has also been actively exploring its East Side diamond project in the Fort la Corne district of Saskatchewan.

Brazilian gold explorer Verena Minerals grabbed second spot with almost 4 million shares changing hands, dropping a couple of pennies to close at 14 per share. The company recently entered into an agreement granting Kinross Gold an option to earn a 70% interest in the Monte do Carmo project, located in Tocantines, Brazil. Kinross must spend US$2 million in exploration over three years to earn in. Verena must also issue 500,000 shares to Teck Cominco to release certain project rights.

Island Mountain Gold Mines traded just over 3.9 million shares over the week, closing even at 13.5 per share. Due to an oversubscription, the company recently boosted a planned non-brokered private placement to 18 million units at 20 per unit to raise proceeds of $3.6 million.

Bear Tooth Platinum saw 3 million shares change hands over the period, shedding a penny to close at 11 per share. The company is exploring for platinum group metals in the Stillwater igneous complex of south-central Montana.

Norsemont Mining gained 25%, to close up 77 per share at $3.84, on volume of over 2.9 million shares. Recent drilling on its Constancia project in southern Peru encountered significant intercepts of copper mineralization. Norsemont is optioning the copper-moly-gold project from Rio Tinto.

Uranium explorer Laramide Resources rallied 11%, gaining 48 to close at $4.98 per share on trading volume of 2.95 million. The company is focused on its Westmoreland copper-gold-uranium project in Queensland, Australia. The project had undergone previous exploration by Rio Tinto throughout the 1990s, including a prefeasibility study that reviewed an inferred resource of about 16 million tonnes grading 0.12% U3O8 (non-National Instrument 43-101 compliant). Laramide recently acquired full interest in the project from private Australian company Tackle Resources and has started an airborne survey of the area.