Trading Summary (November 24, 2003)

Toronto’s gold index felt the drag of a sinking yellow metal dropping 2.94 points to settle at 224.10 on Monday. Gold shed US$4.50 per oz. to end the day at US$391.30 per oz. in New York. The diversified miners picked up the slack gaining 1.23% to 186.03, helping the S&P/TSX composite index 66.56 points higher to 7,850.15.

Shares in Queenstake Resources remained a hot commodity ending off a penny at 81 with more than 14 million shares changing hands. On Thursday, the company posted a net loss of $7.1 million (or 3 per share) for the three months ended Sept. 30. The loss includes an $8.5 million writeoff provision of the Magistral joint venture, reflecting operating deficits and the probable need for significant additional capital expenditures.

TVI Pacific was next in line with about 9.6 million shares finding their way 2.5, or nearly 14%, higher to 20.5. On Monday, the company reported that a mapping and sampling on the Xianrenyan gold target area has turned up two new target areas immediately north and south of the Xianrenyan gold deposit. The junior also outlined five new target exhibiting “Carlin-type” geochemical signatures outside the Xianrenyan area.

Fellow junior X-Cal Resources jumped 8, or 9%, higher to 98. The company has agreed to a 50-50 joint venture with a private group to exercise its option on Kinross Gold‘s interests in the Sleeper area, and fund exploration of the Sleeper gold district in Humboldt Cty., Nevada. The private group will pony up US$20 million, and X-Cal will chip in all of its 100%-owned claims in the Sleeper area. An initial US$8-US$10-milliion exploration budget has been set. Subject to regulatory and Kinross approvals, and due diligence the deal is expected to close by Dec. 20. For its part, Kinross edged 2 pennies higher to $10.92.

On Monday, GoldCorp subscribed to a private placement of 1 million shares of Geoinformatics Explorations at $1 apiece to take a 8.3% stake in the technology and science based exploration company. Other shareholders include St Andrew Goldfields and Fractal Holdings each with 41.7%, and St George Minerals with a 8.3% interest. GoldCorp fell 30 to $22.10, while St Andrew finished 2 to the good at32.

Canada’s junior exchange started the trading week off in the red as lower bullion prices took its toll on speculative gold issues. The S&P-TSX Venture Exchange composite index lost 1.36 points, or 0.08% and closed at 1,610.82.

Loubel Exploration was the most actively traded issue, gaining 1 to close at 7 on 1.55 million shares traded. In late Sept., Toronto-listed Inmet Mining began drilling the company’s Lemoine property in the Chibougamau mining camp of Quebec. The program includes three holes each ranging from 1,000 to 1,200 metres.The holes are testing the same stratigraphic horizon that hosted the past producing Lemoine mine, which cranked out 758,070 tonnes of massive sulphides from 1975 to 1983 with a grade of 4.2% copper, 9.6% zinc, 4.2 grams gold and 83.4 grams silver. Inmet is earning a 60% interest in the project.

Aurelian Resources got a boost following news that the first drill hole into the Condor property in Ecuador returned 51.06 grams gold per tonne gold over 9.2 metres. Included in this section was a 0.75 metre section running 501 grams gold per tonne. The junior ended the day at $2.55, up 15 on 705,165 shares traded.

Pan-Asia Mining ended the day down a penny at 19 on 1.5 million shares traded. The company has a controlling interest in a Sino-Foreign joint venture company in the Shandong Province in the People’s Republic of China. The Joint Venture Company owns and operates the 701 Changma Diamond Mine.

Cabo Mining dropped 1 to close at 9 on just over 1 million shares traded. The junior holds the Cobalt property 10 km. southeast of the town of Cobalt, Ontario.