Trading Summary (September 19, 2002)

A US$2.30 gain by gold to finish at US$322.60 per oz. in New York helped Toronto gold stocks higher on Thursday. The Toronto Stock Exchange’s Gold index climbed 3.33 points or 1.7% to hit 202.33, the exchange’s only advancing subindex. The Diversified Metals & Mining index ended 0.95 of a point lower at 111.64 points. Overall, the S&P/TSX Composite index lost 116.56 points to 6,188.21.

Predictably, the country’s gold miners were heavily traded; surprisingly they put in mixed results. Newmont Mining‘s exchangeable shares were the most heavily traded. The issue grew by $1.50 per shares to $45.90 with more than 6.5 million shares traded. One of Newmont’s Australian subsidiaries recently announced plans to eliminate its hedge book, which covers about 600,000 oz. of gold, by early next year.

Placer Dome went the other way, falling 7 to $16.55 on about 5.3 million shares. Eldorado Gold made the top ten traded list adding the same amount to hit $3.59. A feasibility study of the company’s Kisladag gold project in Turkey is slated for completion in March 2003. At last count, Kisladag played host to measured and indicated resources totalling 149 million tonnes grading 1.14 grams gold per tonne. Another 61.9 million tonnes running 0.92 gram gold is classified as inferred.

Kinross Gold made a nickel to reach $3.59. Late on Thursday, Kinross and Bema Gold, co-owners of Compania Minera Maricunga (CMM), reported that CMM has received full payment of a US$24-million award settlement from Fluor Daniel Chile Ingenieria y Construccion, Fluor Daniel, and Fluor Daniel Wright. The award relates to damages related to design and construction failures at the Refugio mine in Northern Chile. For their part, Bema shares tacked on 2 to settle at $2.14.

Other golds seeing action were: Barrick Gold, plus 66 to $27.33 and Wheaton River Minerals, which finished off 4 to $1.23.

Cameco was the only issue on the base metal index to post a gain, climbing 29 to $28.01. Most of the others put in around 1% losses. Swedish miner Boliden shed 20 or about 7% to $2.60.

Advancers lost to decliners 263 to 294 on Canada’s junior exchange as the TSX Venture Exchange composite index slipped 3.39 points or 0.33% and closed the day at 992.98 with 29.1 million shares traded.

American Bonanza Gold Mining was the day’s volume leader with 672,000 shares changing hands. Late last month the junior made an agreement with Mask Resources, whereby Mask may acquire up to 49% of American Bonanza’s wholly owned Gold Bar and Pamlico projects, both located in Nevada. In return, Mask would make a cash payment of $100,000, issue 800,000 Mask shares, and fund exploration to the tune of $3.6 million over a three-year period. American Bonanza closed up 1 to 16.

JNR Resources found a penny and closed at 8 on 346,000 shares. The company recently received results for three holes drilled this summer on the JNR Resources/Kennecott Canada Exploration Moore Lake uranium project in northern Saskatchewan. The best results were from drill hole ML-25 which returned 0.62 % U3O8 over 9.1 meters, including a 4.8 meter interval of 1.2 % U3O8 as well as a 0.4 meter interval of 12% U3O8.

IBI Corp. remained flat at a nickel with 286,000 shares traded. The company owns, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Canmin Resources, a 100% working interest in the Namekara vermiculite mine in south-east Uganda which consists of 5 million tonnes of the material.