Silver shines over Venture Exchange

Robust prices for gold and silver triggered another round of trading activity on the TSX Venture Exchange over the report period March 31-April 6. The composite index was up about 20 points at 1,881 over the week.

Alto Minerals was one of the greatest percentage gainers, almost doubling to 21. The junior has a 50% stake in the Windfall Lake gold project in Quebec’s Urban Twp., where Fury Explorations is earning 75% of Alto’s interest. Noront Resources holds the remaining interest.

Christopher James Gold soared 109% to 50 after announcing a “working alliance” with the privately held Craigmont Mines Joint Venture. The deal gives the company an option to explore and develop Craigmont’s projects in British Columbia, including the Craigmont mine, which produced 36.7 million tons averaging 1.28% copper before it closed in 1982. The Craigmont Joint Venture in turn was granted an option to explore the company’s magnetite project, also in British Columbia. Bud Smith, a well-known lawyer and former cabinet minister, heads up Kamloops-based Christopher James Gold.

Juniors with silver projects seemed to attract the most investor attention over our report period. Silver Standard Resources jumped $1.06 to $22.30 after reporting its resource base had grown by 56 million oz. The company signed an option agreement to buy the Berenguela project in southern Peru. This property was mined continuously from 1905 through 1965, and produced about 500,000 tonnes at an average grade of 750 grams silver per tonne, for total production of more than 11 million oz. silver.

Scorpio Mining was the second largest value gainer for the period, up 89 at $3.49. The junior recently completed a $17-million financing to bring its Mexican silver project into production. The Nuestra Senora project is about 10 km southeast of Cosala, in Sinaloa state, and comprises four silver-zinc-copper-lead-gold deposits. Scorpio says underground development is ahead of schedule and construction of a 900-tonne-per-day mill is also under way. A unit of Asarco had developed these deposits in the 1950s and 1960s.

Coal companies don’t often get much attention, but Western Canadian Coal was an exception this past week. The company climbed 35 to reach $1.71. The company, now headed by Charles Pitcher, holds a sizable portfolio of coal projects in northeastern British Columbia, including the Perry Creek project, targeted for commercial production in early 2006.

SKN Resources slid another 12 to $2.50 after reporting less than stellar assay results from its gold project in China’s Yunnan province. The project is adjacent to the high-profile Boka property, being explored by Southwestern Resources.

A recent private placement gave Rome Resources proceeds of about $1 million to explore various properties in Mexico and Argentina. The junior was up 40 at $3.00 after announcing the results of geophysical and geochemical programs at the Inguaran project in Mexico’s Michoacan state. President Colin Godwin says several large anomalies indicate that the area surveyed and sampled “might host several major copper-silver-gold-tungsten porphyry deposits.”