Venture posts gains, Oct. 30-Nov. 3

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index gained 4.6 points to a 791.98-point close, as spot gold prices fell US$3.44 to US$1,273.35 per oz., and Comex copper prices gained US2¢ to US$3.12 per lb.

Shares of New Nadina Explorations rose 98¢ to $1.27 over the trading period on anticipation of assay results from the company’s polymetallic Silver Queen property, 43 km south of Houston in central British Columbia. The company is at the onset of a 5,000- to 8,000-metre drill program targeting historic silver-epithermal veins within a porphyry, in addition to testing a deep geophysical anomaly northwest of the vein system that could indicate massive sulphides. On Oct. 25, New Nadina reported that a drill-hole testing the geophysical anomaly returned a 261-metre interval of “high-grade sulphides” consisting of intense stockwork veining, with 1.5 cm thick sulphide veins down to 10 cm intervals. A historical drill hole intercepted the geophysical anomaly 400 metres southwest of the reported intercept and returned 1.7 metres of 843.4 grams silver per tonne, 0.08% copper, 12.2% lead and 27.2% zinc at 437 metres deep. On Oct. 27, the company printed a retraction, at the request of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, removing reference to “high-grade sulphides,” with no assays received to date. The rest of the drill campaign is testing mineralized extensions of an epithermal-vein intercept in a 2015 drill hole.

Metallis Resources, a junior explorer with a land position next to Garibaldi Resources’ E&L nickel-copper project, has retained Peter Lightfoot — one of Garibaldi’s technical advisors — to review the company’s Thunder North nickel-copper prospect in northwestern B.C.’s Golden Triangle district. Shares of Metallis were up 49¢ to $2.60 during trading. Thunder North is located in a previously unexplored northeastern section of Metallis’ Kirkham copper-gold-silver-nickel property. Recent mapping and sampling in the area have found gabbroic units similar to those that host mineralization at E&L. The units begin at Thunder South and outcrop intermittently over 800 metres, whereas at Thunder North the gabbro appears altered. The company drilled a single hole into a structurally controlled silica-pyrite zone within a diorite, along the margin of a gabbro at Thunder North. Assay results are pending.

Millennial Lithium has settled a case with Salta Provincial Energy and Mining and a competing bidder involving the award of mineral exploration claims to Millennial. The news drove shares of the company up 52¢ to $2.76. The settlement paves the way towards finalizing an agreement for 24.9 sq. km of claims in Argentina’s Pastos Grandes Salar, contiguous with Millennial’s Pastos Grandes lithium project. The acquisition would bring Millennial’s holdings to 86.6 square kilometres.