Montreal Exchange New Cambior mine

Quiet trading days prevail on the market where investors seem unable to make up their minds on what the future holds for the economy in general and interest rates and inflation in particular. The trend has been evident on the Montreal Exchange, where this past week daily trading volumes ranged between 3.7 million and 4.4 million shares. The general market index lost sightly more than 17 pts on the week, while the mining and minerals index climbed almost 12 pts.

Cambior Inc., which traded 124,900 shares and gained 38 cents to $15, recently officially opened its Pierre Beauchemin (the former Eldrich-Flavel property) gold mine in northwestern Quebec. At full production, the mine is expected to produce about 40,000 oz annually.

Planning a $4.4-million underground exploration program at the Normetal polymetallic property near La Sarre, Que., are project partners Normetal Mining Exploration, which closed unchanged at 29 cents on a volume of 8,000, and La Sarre Mining Exploration, which slipped 1 cents to 10 cents on 34,800 shares. A third party, Orfinance, is to fund the work in return for a 25% interest in the project.

Encouraged by initial drilling results from the Joubi gold project located in the Val d’Or area of Quebec are project partners Western Quebec Mines, Messeguay Mines and Oasis Resources. Western Quebec traded 24,800 shares and closed unchanged at $1.50, Messeguay dropped 3 cents to 20 cents with 80,500 shares changing hands and Oasis fell 2 cents to 17 cents on a volume of 114,800.

One of the more active traders this summer has been Golden Day Mining Exploration of Vancouver, which moved up 1 cents to 11 cents on 155,600 shares. Controlled by Noramco Mining, which gained 3 cents to $2.55 on a volume of 20,600, Golden Day is a junior exploration company with interests in numerous properties and also a holding company in that it now owns the controlling interests in 15 junior resource companies.

Reporting encouraging drilling results from three vein structures at the Fern Elizabeth gold property in the Atikokan area of northwestern Ontario was Mimiska Mining, which lost 9 cents to 90 cents with 47,300 shares changing hands. Other vein structures have also been uncovered on the property.