Juniors lifted on speculative tide

Generally bullish commodity news and a surging gold price kept things rosy for the juniors during the report period Sept. 13-19. The TSX Venture Index closed at 2,069.80 on Sept. 19, a gain of 71.64 points or 3.6%. Market punters were largely buying the mystery, as deals and staking brought shares up, and selling the history, as concrete exploration results usually brought shares down.

Laramide Resources was the biggest gainer on the Venture exchange, closing at $4.50, up $1.75. The company polished off its purchase of the Westmoreland uranium project in Queensland in August. Westmoreland, with a resource of 17.4 million tonnes grading 0.12% U3O8, cost 3 million Laramide shares down and the purchase price could go to 4.5 million shares if further resources are outlined.

Laramide also did a deal with Barrick Gold to take over properties in the western United States formerly held by Homestake Mining, which Laramide believes to be prospective for uranium. It also has a $10 million private placement in the works to fund the Barrick deal and provide exploration budgets for both Westmoreland and the Homestake properties.

The biggest price move in percentage terms came from Freeport Resources, which rose 31 to finish at 55. The Vancouver-based junior announced earlier in the month that Inco and Cornerstone Capital Resources had staked claims surrounding Freeport’s Notakwanon land package, about 25 km southeast of the Voisey’s Bay nickel deposit in Labrador.

Data from geophysical surveys Inco has done on the Freeport ground was passed to Freeport, which reported that a conductive body detected in the survey extends about 600 metres on to Freeport’s property. Freeport exploration crews took some surface samples but there are no results from those samples yet.

Ivana Ventures rose 38 to close at 70 on thin volume, as the company announced a deal to acquire a coal property near Urumqi in China’s central Asian province of Xinjiang. Ivana puts up US$2 million in assessment and exploration costs, plus US$50,000 annually for five years for training expenses, and US$120,000 to US$216,000 annually for three years for salaries. In return it gets an 81% interest in the operation’s profits until return of capital, and a 62% interest thereafter.

There was no resource assessment on the coal seams, but they have an average cumulative thickness of about 120 metres on a property 23.4 sq. km in size.

New World Resource knocked back its La Juliana gold property in Sonora state, Mexico, following disappointing drill results. The market shed its tears, too, while New World shares shed 51 to close at 26. La Juliana drilling returned a few relatively narrow zones running around 1 gram gold per tonne, with a few higher-grade teasers, but generally didn’t live up to the promises made by high-grade surface sampling and New World is dropping its option.

Bear Creek Mining was off 49 at $2.96. The shares backed off slightly after a month-long run up. Bear Creek announced results from the Corani silver project in Peru last week, and issued 3.6 million shares and warrants in August, which are subject to a hold until the end of the year.

Island Mountain Gold Mines was the most active of the Venture-listed mineral explorers, with 11.1 million shares changing hands. The company, whose main project is in the Wells-Barkerville gold camp of British Columbia, has just completed a private placement of 18 million units at 20 each. There are two classes of units, one consisting of a flow-through share, a common share, and a common share purchase warrant, and the other consisting of two common shares and a warrant. Island Mountain closed half a cent higher at 13.5.