TSX Venture falls, June 24-28: Aurion, Golden Dawn, Itafos

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index fell 1.20% to 585.47 during the June 24-28 trading week. Spot gold rose US$9.90 per oz. or 0.71% to US$1,408.90 per oz.

Aurion Resources topped the list of value gains with a jump of $0.40 to $1.59 per share, based on results from the first two drill holes of its 2019 campaign at the company’s Risti project in northern Finland. The company intersected a wide zone of gold mineralization in the first two of ten proposed drill holes at the Aamurusko Northwest prospect, about 600 metres northwest of the Aamurusko Main target area. Drill hole AM19095 returned 13.31 grams gold per tonne over 19.54 metres starting from 70 metres downhole, including 8.18 metres of 22.58 grams gold and AM19094 intersected 1.84 grams gold over 31.12 metres from 56 metres downhole, and the hole ended in mineralization. Altogether 70 of 84 drill holes completed so far at Aamurusko—at both the Main and Northwest targets—have intersected gold mineralization. Highlights from drilling at Aamurusko Main have included 789.10 grams gold over 2.9 metres, 42.40 grams gold over 4 metres and 24.50 grams gold over 4.75 metres. Gold mineralization has been intersected in multiple rock types to a depth of 180 metres below surface. Aurion notes that the Risit project’s geological setting has many similarities to the Timmins camp in northern Ontario’s Abitibi region.

Golden Dawn Minerals advanced 51% or $0.12 to $0.34 per share in the wake of news of a proposed 5:1 share consolidation. The junior said the share consolidation was “necessary to facilitate new equity investment in the company to finance continuing business activities and assist in its overall marketing efforts. Currently Golden Dawn has 77.56 million issued and outstanding shares and following the consolidation it will have about 15.51 million shares. The company has assets in the Greenwood mining camp of British Columbia. It has acquired three past-producing mines and a processing facility—Lexington, Golden Crown, May Mac Mine and the Greenwood mill—all located within a 25 km radius. Two of the three mines operated until the economic downturn in 2008.

Shares of integrated phosphate fertilizer producer Itafos climbed $0.17 to $0.75 on news of a plant turnaround at its Itafos Conda division in Idaho, and record production of monoammonium phosphate (MAP). The plant produced 34,288 tonnes of MAP in May, exceeding a previous record set in 2013 of 32,341 tonnes.