VANCOUVER — The S&P TSX Venture Composite Index rose 41.4 points or 3.24% to close near 52-week highs at 1,318.1 points during the Sept. 10-14 trading sessions. An announcement by U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke on a third round of quantitative easing (QE) sent commodities and stock indexes soaring.
The Fed announced its plan to buy US$40 billion per month in agency mortgage-backed securities, as well as leaving open the potential for further asset purchases if the U.S. economy continues to struggle. Bernanke also indicated record low interests rates would hang around until at least mid-2015.
Gold jumped US$34 following the news, briefly touching a 7-month high of US$1,775 before ending the week at US$1,772.70 per oz. Silver prices also strengthened, approaching the US$35 per oz. range for the first time since early March.
Vancouver-based explorer Kaminak Gold led the way on the value-added side, jumping 57¢ en route to a $2.28 weekly close. The company released assay results from a 52-hole drill program focused on its Supremo gold zones at the Coffee gold project in the Yukon Territory. Kaminak is undertaking a shallow drill program aimed at extending its T4 and T5 gold zones towards its T3 zone. The company announced it had successfully connected the Supremo T3 and T4 zones on Sept. 11.
Results from T4 extended the zone’s strike length to 1,500 metres with highlights including: 51.8 metres averaging 3.09 grams gold per tonne in hole CFR-254; 20 metres grading 5.27 grams gold in hole CFR-283; and 17 metres of 5.1 grams gold in hole CFR-268.
Gold streaming outfit Sandstorm Gold was another solid performer during the week, as the company rose 41¢ or 4.1% en route to a $10.33 close. Sandstorm completed a US$150-million bought-deal financing on Sept. 7 and mobilized a portion of its capital on Sept. 10 when it pledged US$10 million towards Luna Gold‘s phase one expansion at the Aurizona gold operation in northeastern Brazil.
Sandstorm also agreed to provide a non-revolving loan facility worth US$20 million at Luna’s request to fund the mine expansion. Sandstorm’s streaming agreement entitles the company to buy 17% of the life-of-mine gold at Aurizona at a price of US$400 per oz.
Gold explorer Newstrike Capital jumped 31¢ or 16% on the back of promising results from 5,000 metres of drilling at its Ana Paula gold-silver project on Mexico’s Guerrero belt. The results were from a two-pronged exploration and delineation program focused on the property’s southern zones. Newstrike is in the process of compiling an initial resource on a high-grade breccia zone located to the southeast, as well as completing exploration holes to test a contact zone between highly-altered sediments and mineralized intrusion to the southwest.
Highlights from the delineation program include: 174 metres grading 5.45 grams gold and 11.8 grams silver in hole 12-111; 58 metres averaging 2.27 grams gold in hole 12-114; and 56 metres averaging 2.56 grams gold in hole 12-115.
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