Market mayhem misses CDNX

Vancouver — Canada’s junior exchange managed to survive the recent market meltdown with relatively minor damage. The oil-and-gas and mining indices managed to stay in positive territory while tech stocks took the brunt of the market’s wrath. The Canadian Venture Exchange composite index closed the week ended March 12 down 26.29 points, or 0.8%, to 3,076.13. The mining index held its ground and tacked on 3.42 points, or 0.05%, to close the period at 6,223.20.

Kensington Resources topped the most-actively-traded chart among junior explorers, dropping 12 to 52 with just over 2 million shares traded. The company announced macrodiamond counts from two pipes on the Fort La Corne diamond project in Saskatchewan. A 580-tonne bulk sample produced 487 macros with a combined weight of 38.37 carats. The two largest stones weighed 1.09 carats and 0.5 carat, respectively.

Pacific North West Capital got a boost after releasing results from the first seven holes of an ongoing 11,000-metre drill program on the River Valley platinum-palladium property in Ontario. The junior explorer jumped 18 to $1.20 on a volume of 1.5 million shares.

Cantex Mine Development closed the week up a penny to 17, with 1.3 million shares changing hands. The Charles Fipke-led junior has hired an independent consultant to confirm an in-house resource estimate for its Al Hariqah gold project in Yemen. The Canadian Ventures Exchange stated that the company’s estimates were not prepared or disclosed in accordance with new CDNX policy.

New Blue Ribbon Resources dropped 2 and closed at 16, on a volume of 1.1 million shares. The Edmonton-based junior, which recently inked a deal with BHP Diamonds, can earn a 30% stake in BHP’s 2,400-sq.-km Moose project in northeastern Manitoba in return for $2.05 million of exploration work by the end of 2002. To date, BHP has completed more than $4.5 million of regional work in Manitoba.

Donner Minerals closed at 12, up 2 with 837,000 shares traded. Shares in the company rose on news that all the companies involved in the South Voisey’s Bay project in Labrador had merged specific properties into a new company, called SVB Nickel. The merger is designed to minimize costs and attract a major to help advance one large project instead of many smaller ones.

North American Tungsten continued to post solid gains, ending the week up 7 to 86, with 777,000 shares traded. The company owns 100% of the now idle CanTung mine and the MacTung deposit in the Northwest Territories. Strong tungsten prices are driving the company’s shares.

Orogrande Resources lost a nickel and closed at 9, with 773,000 shares crossing the floor. Investors sold off shares following the release of assay results from the first two holes on the Burnt Pond project, which is adjacent to Duck Pond in the Buchans area of Newfoundland. The best results came from hole 2, which returned up to 0.06% copper, 0.11% lead and 0.36% zinc, plus 1.6 grams silver per tonne, over 41 metres.