Trading Summary (March 19, 2003)

Toronto stocks edged 14.87 points higher to 6,453.48 as world markets braced for war on Wednesday. The golds put their recent rise on hold to take a 3.04-point loss to end at 160.02. In New York, bullion closed at US$335.60 per oz., off US$1.60. The diversified miners slipped 0.6 of a point to 129.78 points.

St Andrew Goldfields vaulted onto the TSX’s top ten most active list gaining 2 or 10% of value to make 22 with nearly 8 million shares changing hands. On Wednesday, the company announced that its 45.4%-owned subsidiary Geoinformatics Exploration has entered into a strategic alliance with Rio Tinto subsidiary Kennecott Exploration.

Under the deal, Geoinformatics will: pick up exploration projects that do not meet Kennecott’s exploration criteria; build a 3D mineralization model using Kennecott’s Great Basin data; and acquire the Uncle Sam gold project in Central Alaska for a 2% net smelter return a US $250,000 exploration commitment over a 5-years.

Northern Orion Explorations was the only other mining issue to make the top ten list trading more than 2 million shares half a penny higher to 19.5. The company’s shares have been on the rise since early February when the company agreed to acquire BHP Billiton’s stake in the Agua Rica copper-gold project in Argentina and thus become the sole owner. Resources there are pegged at 750 million tonnes grading 0.99% copper-equivalent.

The country’s major gold producers went in opposite directions. Heading south were Placer Dome and Kinross Gold. Placer dropped 35 to $13.80 as Kinross shed 39 to $8.60. Barrick Gold ended 15 to the good at $22.40.

LionOre Mining International remained on investors’ view screens grabbing 11 to reach $5.66 on a trading volume of more than 1.5 million shares. The company recent agreed to a strategic alliance tat will see Inco take a life-of-mine off-take agreement at LionOre’s Maggie Hay mine in Australia. The company also reported strong fourth-quarter financial results thanks to an increased stake in Tati Nickel. The company also reports that the BCL smelter in Botswana has resumed operations after being shutdown in early February.

Aluminum giant Alcan trailed LionOre gaining 17 to $43.41 on just more than 1 million shares. The rest of the base metal miners were quiet.

Canada’s junior exchange edged up but advancers still lost to decliners 229 to 315. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index added 1.02 points, or 0.10%, and closed at 1,063.02 with 32 million shares traded.

Spider Resources was the day’s volume leader with 2.4 million shares traded. The junior and joint venture partner KWG Resources have launched a 1,000 metre diamond drilling program on their Spider #3 base metal prospect in the James Bay Lowlands of Northern Ontario. Spider tacked on 2 and closed at 11.

Apac Minerals closed up 5 to 65 with 823,000 shares traded. The company holds several epithermal gold prospects in the Los Menucos area of Rio Negro province in the northern part of the Patagonia area of Argentina. The company is also in the process of raising $1.6 million to fund exploration on its Argentine properties (current budget $200,000). An additional $100,000 is being spent on a due diligence investigation and evaluation of the Nihao gold project in China. The balance is reserved for working capital.

IMA Exploration jumped 11 and closed at $1 with 496,000 shares traded. The company recently announced news of a grassroots high-grade silver discovery in the Patagonia region of southern Argentina. The company believes that the Navidad discovery is part of a shallow subaqueous epithermal system that deposited silver enriched sulphides at or near the sea floor. IMA has identified a large mineralized system with two key features – a high-grade section measuring several hundred metres, and a lower-grade bulk tonnage target that extends for a number of km.