TSX Venture declines, Sept. 13-17

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index fell 16.52 points points or 1.83% to finish the September 13-17 trading week at 886.83. Spot gold fell US$33.00 per oz. or 1.85% to US$1,753.80 per ounce.

Uranium Royalty climbed $1.48 per share to $5.88. The company said it is entering contracts for three spot purchases totaling 300,000 lb. of U308 at an average cost of US$38.17 per pound. The deliveries are scheduled for September and October and the acquisitions are fully funded with cash on hand. Once completed, the deliveries will bring Uranium Royalty’s physical inventory to 648,068 lb. U308 at a weighted average cost of US$33.10 per lb. The company also announced the appointment of John Griffith to its board of directors. Griffith is a former managing director and head of Americas Metals and Mining Investment Banking at the Bank of America.

Shares of Altus Strategies rose 18¢ to$1.48. The junior announced that it expects to receive its first royalty income payment this month from its 0.418% net smelter return (NSR) royalty interest on the Caserones copper mine in Chile. Altus estimates the royalty for the quarter ended June 30 will be greater than US$1 million before tax. “Due to strong copper prices during the period, it is believed this may represent the highest quarterly royalty payment from Caserones since production commenced in 2015,” Altus stated in a news release, noting that the mine has an estimated 17 years of production life remaining. Altus acquired the royalty on Caserones in August for US$34.1 million through a 50:50 partnership with EMX Royalty. The two companies created a jointly owned special purpose vehicle, which acquired an effective 0.836% NSR royalty for US$68.2 million (0.418% for Altus and 0.418% for EMX Royalty). Caserones is an open-pit copper-molybdenum deposit, about 15 km from Chile’s border with Argentina, 162 km southeast of the city of Copiapo.

InZinc Mining jumped 66.7% to 8¢ per share. The junior reported geochemical results on Sept. 14 that have extended soil responses in an area between the Anomaly C and Delta Horizon targets at its Indy Sedex project in British Columbia. The results show strong, coincident, multi-element (zinc, lead and barium) soil responses over 1.9 km in this part of the 7-km-long Main Trend. The company has called this area Echo and says it is the largest target yet defined at the project. It says samples returned 800 to 1,000 parts per million zinc with highs of up to 3,700 ppm (0.37%) zinc. Barium in soil coincident with the zinc responses was also strong, the company said, ranging from 2,000 ppm to at least 10,000 ppm (1%) relative to other targets. Then on Sept. 16 it announced that geochemical results have outlined silver-in-soil responses in the area located between the new 1.9 km Echo zinc target and the 1.5 km long Delta Horizon zinc target.