Alberta Stock Exchange Ateba trades heavily

News that Ateba Mines has started milling operations at its Beardmore, Ont. gold properties sparked considerable investor interest in the Toronto based company.

On a day when volumes were well down, Ateba was one of the big traders with 371,500 shares changing hands. While the company has started to mill surface rock dumps at Beardmore, Ateba is also exploring the old Northern Empire and Magnet mines. The issue gained 25 cents to close at $1.30.

Jascan Resources also caught the imagination of Alberta investors. Trading on a volume of 566,800 shares, the issue was up 88 cents to close at $7.38. According to the company, investors may be responding to speculation that silver prices are about to move upwards.

Coincidentally, Jascan is currently earning a 22.5% interest in a Montana silver/copper deposit. It is located 15 miles southeast of Asarco’s Troy mine where exploration results have indicated reserves of 71 million tons grading 2.32 oz silver per ton.

While volumes posted by most issues were much lower, a number of them gained substantially on previous sessions. Monte Carlo Gold Mines, for example, gained 50 cents to close at $4.90 while Rembrandt Gold was up 80 cents on 30,300 shares. After failing at its first attempt, Monte Carlo recently arranged the financing to fund exploration at its Aruba Island gold bet.

Aurora Gold dropped 4 cents to close at 45 cents on a volume of 13,000 shares despite news that Belmoral Mines has begun a joint venture exploration program on Aurora’s Senneville property on the Bourlamaque Batholith.

According to Aurora, six holes of a 5,000 ft drill program have intersected what it calls a 20 ft x 200 ft shear zone.

Although several new gold occurrences were discovered at its Berven Lake project, Troymin Resources was also down 8 cents . The Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation recently advised Troymin that gold mineralization of up to 1.43 oz gold had been encountered. Nevertheless, the issue closed at 61 cents on a volume of 154,000.

Greenstrike Gold Corp. and Petromet Resources have added a third drill on Pan East Resources Fifteen Mile Stream property in Nova Scotia. An expanded drill program is designed to increase gold reserves which stand at 600,000 tons averaging 0.24 oz gold per ton.

However, Greenstrike dropped 24 cents to close at $1.40 and Pan East was down 34 cents at $3.30.