Radius among few bright spots in gloomy week

Vancouver — The Canadian Venture Exchange finished the report period ended March 27 lower at 2,988.71, off 23.76 points, or 0.8%. The mining index lost 97.07 points, or 1.6%, to close at 6,074.70.

Radius Explorations announced a $2.1-million financing on the back of additional trench results from the El Tambor project in Guatemala. Endeavour Capital will be the lead investor in a non-brokered private placement of up to 2 million special warrants priced at $1.05. Each special warrant will be convertible into one share and a half-warrant, with a whole warrant allowing the holder to buy an additional share at $1.25 for one year. Recent infill and stepout trenching on the Sastre zone, one of five known gold zones that coincide with a 6-km-long soil anomaly on the Tambor property, yielded significant values. These included 54.5 metres of 6.41 grams, 40.9 metres of 10.1 grams, 14.2 metres of 4.83 grams, and 12.4 metres of 4.74 grams. Early trench results from the TBS zone, 1.2 km southeast of Sastre, included 17.2 metres grading 3.25 grams, 28.2 metres of 1.76 grams, and 23.4 metres of 2.62 grams. Reverse-circulation drilling of priority targets will begin in May. Radius closed up 2 at $1.20 on strong volume.

Pacific North West Capital traded down a quarter to end the week at $1 on the latest batch of results from an 11,000-metre fourth phase of drilling on the River Valley platinum-palladium project, near Sudbury, Ont. South Africa’s Anglo American Platinum can earn up to a 65% stake by funding the project through to production. Although highlights included a 37.5-metre intercept of 0.94 gram platinum and 3.7 grams palladium, starting at 147 metres down-hole in the South zone, drilling at Lismer Ridge yielded lower-grade results of 11.95 metres grading 0.21 gram platinum and 0.7 gram palladium in hole 5, plus 3.14 metres of 0.61 gram platinum and 0.56 gram palladium in hole 6.

International Wayside Gold Mines recently resumed exploration drilling at the Cariboo project in the Wells-Barkerville area of east-central British Columbia. The issue reached a high of 38 before falling back to 29, up a penny.

Philex Gold lost 12 to close at 76. The company’s joint-venture partner, Anglo American, has two rigs turning on the Boyungan copper-gold porphyry target in the Philippines.

Diamondex Resources picked up 14 to finish at $1.75. The company is carrying out an aggressive program of exploration drilling for diamonds in far-northern Canada. Two rigs are turning on the King property, which adjoins the northern property boundary of the Snap Lake dyke project of De Beers Consolidated Mines.

Muskox Minerals bounced up 26 to $1.75. Despite a disappointing first round of drilling on the Keel 1 copper/nickel/platinum-group-element prospect in Nunavut, the junior is touting the potential of the deeper, Keel 2 target. Preliminary results from Keel 2 drilling are expected in April.

Meanwhile, Asquith Resources has entered into discussions with Axmin, its joint-venture partner at the Roandji gold project in the Central African Republic. The talks are aimed at exploring the possibility of merging the two companies. Asquith was up 20 at 34.