Venture regains ground

Vancouver – The last full week of November saw the S&P TSX Venture composite index bounce back over the 2000-point threshold after slipping below it the week before. The index climbed 73.66 points over four days to offset a 12.53-point single-day drop to end up 61.13 points at 2057 points even.

Daily trading volume was quite high at an average of 162 million shares traded. The volume was good for juniors, as 159 venture-listed companies hit 52-week highs while only 43 hit 52-week lows.

Richfield Ventures saw the biggest value gains of the week, climbing $1.75 to end at $4.99 on 3.2 million shares traded. The company released drill results from its Blackwater gold-silver project in central British Columbia that included 171 metres grading 3.13 grams gold per tonne from 8 metres depth and 148 metres averaging 1.77 grams gold from 70 metres that pushed mineralization south and east respectively. Richfield also released preliminary metallurgical results that showed an average 92% gold recovery from whole ore cyanidation tests. The company was trading as low as 87¢ in late June.

Juniors in the potash market saw heightened activity after K+S Aktiengesellschaft made a bid for Potash One, proving that interest in the resource is still high. Encanto Potash saw its share price double to 44¢ on 26.8 million shares traded, boosted also by drill results from its Muskowekwan property. Passport Potash climbed 9¢ to 23¢ on 23.6 million shares traded, Western Potash jumped 30¢ to $1.21 on 17.5 million shares traded and Allana Potash rose 12¢ to 59¢ on 16.4 million shares traded.

For the second week in a row, Tasman Metals saw big gains as it advances its Norra Karr rare earth elements project in Sweden. Since November 16, the company’s share price has climbed $2.25 or 168% to $3.59. While the company started metallurgical testing on a 100 kg sample, completed the final tranche of a $7.5 million financing and expects a resource report on the project shortly, Tasman has partially attributed the gain to a positive write-up in a ‘prestigious stock news letter’.

Shares of Avion Gold climbed to new heights as the company released better-than-expected third quarter results. The company’s stock price jumped 39¢ or 38.3% to $1.41 on 14.6 million shares traded, with Avion’s share price having climbed fairly steadily from around 40¢ in late July. The last quarter saw the company earn US$13.6 million and sell 25,700 oz. gold, while the company expects to be producing 200,000 oz. gold annually from its Mali operations by 2012.

Infinito Gold saw its share price drop 51.8% to 13¢ after a Costa Rican administrative tribunal cancelled the company’s exploitation concessions and environmental approvals for its Crucitas gold project in the country. The Crucitas project hosts 1.2 million indicated oz. and a further 1.2 million inferred oz., and a feasibility study put an after tax internal rate of return of 35% on it. Earlier this year the Supreme Court of Costa Rica had confirmed the validity of the same concessions and approvals. Full details of the decision are not yet available but the company is considering an appeal.