TSX Venture slips, Nov. 9-13

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index fell 0.80% to finish the Nov. 9-13 trading week at 736.37. Spot gold dropped 3.11%, or US$60.60 per oz., to US$1,889.20 per ounce.

Shares of Artemis Gold jumped 41¢ to $5.55. The company released details of a 35,000-metre grade control drill program at its Blackwater gold project in British Columbia. The reverse circulation drill program will focus on delineating an area in the southwestern portion of the Blackwater pit (scheduled in the prefeasibility study [PFS] to be in the first year of operation), which returned significant near-surface high-grade mineralized intercepts. The company said the program will provide up to 16 times higher data density than used for the resource estimate from the 2020 PFS, which will allow it to optimize grade selectivity and its mine schedule. “This practice significantly de-risks mine performance, particularly in the initial years of production,” the company said, noting that grade control drill programs will be part of normal mining operations once in production, with drilling expected to typically stay ahead of mining by six to 12 months. The company also plans to complete a limited diamond drill program project next year to test for extensions to the known mineralization. The project has already seen more than 300,000 metres of diamond drilling.

Nouveau Monde Graphite posted the highest trading volume and jumped 23¢ to 65¢. The company announced on Nov. 12 that electrochemical tests by the National Research Council of Canada showed that under the same conditions in half-button cell batteries, the reversible capacity (a measure of the energy density for performance) obtained with Noveau Monde’s anode material is 365 mAh/g compared with 360 mAh/g for the leading Asian standards. In addition, the coulombic efficiency for the first cycle was similar for both products and within industry specifications, the company reported. The broader market minimum specification for reversible capacity sits at 350 mAh/g. The company is targeting full-scale commercial operations by early 2023.

RT Minerals surged 129.4% to 20¢ per share. The company reported drill results from its Link Catherine RLDZ property, 25 km southeast of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Highlights include 33 metres grading 2.81 grams gold per tonne starting from 32 metres downhole, including 8 metres of 9.43 grams gold and up to 1 metre of 24.49 grams gold. The company has an option to earn 100% of the property by paying $200,000 in cash, issuing 1.95 million shares and spending $1 million on work programs there over five years. It says the property contains “strongly altered rocks favourable for gold” in a 400 metre wide by 2.5 km long north-south trending deformation zone along the Pacaud fault, and notes the area has only been tested at shallow depths of less than 150 metres.