TSX Venture Exchange slips, Oct. 16-20

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index fell 7.93 points to 789.51 — a 0.99% drop.

Shares of Millennial Lithium jumped 51¢ to $2.34 on no news, prompting the junior to issue a news release on Oct. 18 saying its management was unaware of any changes in its operations that would account for the price increase. On Oct. 11, Millennial reported that it had bought four mining tenements for its flagship Pastos Grandes lithium brine project in Argentina’s Salta province. Since entering the agreement to acquire the properties, Millennial has acquired four more contiguous licences, bringing the project’s total land position to 61.72 square kilometres. The company has four drills on-site. It is also conducting pilot evaporation trials in 16 trial ponds, and bulk sampling for back-end process trials. Millennial’s other lithium projects in Argentina include: Cauchari East, Cruz (optioned to Southern Lithium) and Pocitos West (optioned to Liberty One Lithium). Shares of Liberty One climbed 41¢ to $1.25.

SRG Graphite jumped 40¢ to $1.40. The company is advancing its Lola graphite deposit in Guinea, 1,000 km east of Conakry, the country’s capital. SRG Graphite recently announced it has hired Met-Chem to do a preliminary economic assessment of its wholly owned project, and expects completion by December. Lola is a spin-out of Sama Resources, which owns 44% of SRG Graphite. The company says the graphite deposit is present at surface over 8.7 km, with an average width of 370 metres. In some areas it reaches 1,000 metres wide. SRG Graphite says the occurrence “has a prospective surface outline of 3.22 sq. km of continuous graphitic gneiss, making it one of the largest graphitic surface areas in the world.”

Falco Resources’ shares fell 15¢ to $1.09 per share. The company released the results of a feasibility study on its Horne 5 project in Quebec. The study estimated the project would cost $1 billion to build, and payback on a post-tax basis would take 5.6 years. The mine would have an initial 15-year lifespan with average life-of-mine payable production of 219,000 oz. gold a year. The study estimated all-in sustaining cash costs of US$399 per oz. net of by-product credits, and all-in costs (capex and opex) of US$643 per oz. gold. At US$1,300 per oz. gold and using an exchange rate of $1 to US78¢, Horne 5 would generate a US$602-million after-tax net present value at a 5% discount rate, and a 15.3% after-tax internal rate of return.