TSX Venture up, April 26-30

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index rose 2.56% to finish the trading week at 955.26. Spot gold declined by US$7.80 per oz., or 0.44%, to US$1,769.10 per ounce.

Los Andes Copper jumped $1.72 to $10.00 per share. The company announced that it had received approval from Chile’s Regional Environmental Committee for drilling to start at its Vizcachitas copper-molybdenum project, about 120 km north of Santiago. According to the Canadian miner, the approval covers up to 350 drill holes to be completed over the next four years. The drilling is required to complete a prefeasibility study at Vizcachitas, which is currently underway. The permit also covers further exploration drilling and any other drilling that the project may require as its development advances. The company is moving forward with plans to build a 110,000-tonne-per-day operation, which it believes will be Chile’s next major copper mine.

Shares of Aurania Resources climbed 43¢ to $3.04. The company reported a new discovery in an area called Shimpia North, which it says is an extension of the high-grade silver-zinc-lead mineralisation at Tiria-Shimpia, part of the company’s Lost Cities-Cutucu project in southeastern Ecuador. The new discovery extends the Tiria-Shimpia target from 15 km to a total length of 22 km. According to Aurania, the outcropping mineralization in the first reconnaissance exploration in this new area returned a grade of 40 grams silver per tonne in an extensively weathered gossan (iron-rich residue that remains after intense weathering of sulphide-rich rock), and a boulder of barite in a stream returned 19 grams silver, 6.5% lead, and 1.1% zinc. “Shimpia North appears to have the same character, style and mineralization type as Tiria-Shimpia, though it is displaced to the northwest. I consider it to be part of the same system,” Keith Barron, the company’s CEO, stated in a press release.

Arctic Star Exploration increased by 13¢ to 22¢ per share. The company announced that it had made a new kimberlite discovery on the Diagras project in the Northwest Territories, about 380 km north of Yellowknife. The discovery, named Sequoia, was found by drilling an electromagnetic (EM) and gravity anomaly that together extend 1 km north-south by 200 metres wide. Diagras, a joint venture between Arctic Star and Margaret Lake Resources, already hosts 23 kimberlites previously unearthed by De Beers in the 1990s. Arctic Star is conducting a $2.1 million drill program testing 10 to 15 targets on the 256-sq.-km property. “The priority is to make as many discoveries as we can before the ice melts,” Buddy Doyle, Arctic Star’s vice-president of exploration, stated in a press release.