TSX Venture rises, June 22-26

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index rose 5.56% to finish the trading week at 598.74. Spot gold jumped US$27.70 per oz., or 1.59%, to US$1,771.50 per ounce.

Great Bear Resources topped the list of value gains, rising $2.73 to $18.43 per share. The junior recently announced it had intersected a new Red Lake-style gold-bearing zone it has named Arrow, about 1 km west of its Hinge zone, at its flagship Dixie project in Ontario. Drill hole REG-002 returned three gold-bearing zones along 436 metres of core, including 15 metres of 3 grams gold per tonne starting at 452 metres, with visible gold in quartz veins. Great Bear says these veins feature the same alteration style as the Hinge Zone and Evolution Mining’s Red Lake mine.

Shares of Pure Gold Mining climbed 38¢ to $1.73. The company announced that its Red Lake mine is expected to pour its first gold in the fourth quarter of this year as development progresses ahead of schedule. The company has purchased 95% of the major equipment items for the site and completed 1,285 metres of underground development at an advance rate that is 60% ahead of the mine plan. A new gravity circuit is scheduled to arrive in July and a new ball mill in August. Construction at the Red Lake mine started at the end of 2019.

Gold X Mining’s shares increased 76¢ to $3.59. The company announced that Ivanhoe Mines founder Robert Friedland had joined its board as non-executive chairman. Current chairman and CEO Paul Matysek will remain on the board and continue to serve as CEO. “Paul and I had the pleasure to work together very successfully at Potash One, where I was the chairman, and which we sold in a friendly transaction for $434 million cash in 2011. Paul’s team is now developing an important gold project in Guyana, a beautiful country of which I am very fond and with which I have had a long experience,” Friedland said in a press release. Gold X is developing the Toroparu gold project in the Upper Puruni River Region of western Guyana.

Caldas Gold’s shares rose 52¢ to $2.52. The company announced a US$110 million streaming transaction with Wheaton Precious Metals to expand operations at the Marmato project in Colombia. The proceeds will be used to fund the expansion of Caldas’ mining operations in the Deep Zone. Under the agreement, Wheaton will purchase 6.5% of the gold production and 100% of the silver production until 190,000 oz. gold and 2.15 million oz. silver have been delivered, after which the stream drops to 3.25% of the gold production and 50% of the silver production for the life of mine.