TSXV edges higher during June 12-16 trading week

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index gained 3.5 points or 0.6% over the June 12-16 trading session to end at 613.82.

This week’s top value gainer was Los Andes Copper which closed $3.69 higher at $16.49. On Friday a Chilean court ruled the company could restart drilling at its flagship Vizcachitas project, lifting an injunction against the company that lasted more than a year. In March 2022, the Second Environmental Court in Chile issued a preliminary injunction suspending the drilling program at Vizcachitas because of concerns it could impact the food source of the Andean cat, a threatened species. Last July, the court decided that the company’s drilling program was compatible with the presence of the Andean cat, and that drilling could resume subject to certain conditions. Los Andes and its consultants have since worked to obtain certain government agency filings and approvals required by the court as conditions.

Kalo Gold shares closed the week 150% higher at 10¢ per share after announcing a recent exploration update for its Vatu Aurum gold project in Fiji. According tot the company, field exploration activities are ongoing with bulk leach extractable gold sampling defining a 33-km-long northeast-trending gold corridor across two tenements covering 367 km sq. Stream sediment sampling has also identified several high priority target drainage areas including the Drudrusavu prospect that has been classified as a “very strong gold anomaly” with samples returning up to 580 parts per billion gold. Kalo says it now has developed several datasets including geological mapping, multi-element geochemistry, petrography, litho-geochemistry, geophysics, hyperspectral and drill hole data to help it find more gold. All these layers will now be integrated into a generative study to rank and prioritize targets for follow-up work including drilling.

The most active issue this week was Kiplin Metals which is exploring the Cluff Lake Road (CLR) uranium project in Saskatchewan’s southwestern Athabasca Basin. The compay saw 87 million shares change hands to close 2¢ higher at $16.49 per share. The company has been riding the coattails of a 120% increase in uranium spot prices since 2020. Dr. Peter Born, director of Kiplin, said on June 16 the substantial increase in the price of uranium demonstrated the growing recognition of nuclear power as a key solution for achieving sustainable energy goals. Kiplin’s summer program, contracted to Grander Exploration, will involve geophysical surveying focused on the prospective central part of the property. The company believes that the CLR property’s combination of multiple EM (electromagnetic) conductors, magnetic lineaments, radon gas, and radioactivity anomalies make it a highly prospective location for discovering a basement-hosted uranium deposit.