TSX Venture rides commodities up, Feb. 6-10

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index gained 16.88 points to an 836.16-point close on rising commodity prices. Spot gold prices gained US$13.32, or 1.1%, to US$1,233.62 per oz., whereas Comex copper prices gained 11¢, or 4.2%, to US$2.77 per lb., its highest level since May 2015.

Junior explorer White Gold led the value-added category, gaining 49¢ to $1.65 per share on rising gold prices. On Jan. 23, the company announced exploration results from its properties in the Yukon’s prolific White Gold district, host to the 20 million oz. Klondike goldfields. White Gold used 11,000 soil samples, rock-chip sampling, mapping and geophysics to define drill-ready targets at five of its 23 properties: Nolan, Loonie, IND, Dime and Bonanza. The company is the largest landholder in the district, with land claims totalling 2,970 sq. km. The exploration program is fully financed after an $18-million raise in December, which included $14.5 million from Agnico Eagle Mines.

Secova Metals saw 20.7 million shares traded before closing up 3¢ to 8¢ per share on news of an upcoming $500,000 non-brokered private placement. The company intends to issue up to 10 million units at 5¢ each, with one share and one warrant. Each warrant is exercisable within two years at 8¢ per share. If shares trade at or above 20¢ for 10 trading days during the last year of the warrant period, the warrant must be exercised. The capital would help finance exploration and development at the company’s Duvay gold project with its partner Tres-Or Resources, located in the township of Amos, Que., and greenfields exploration at its Eagle River gold project, in the Windfall Lake camp of Urban-Barry township, Quebec.

Lukas Lundin’s Filo Mining, a Vancouver-based mining company focused on copper-gold-silver exploration in Chile and Argentina, rose 22¢ to $2 per share. On Jan. 20, the company announced that an 8,000-metre drill program is underway at its flagship Filo del Sol project, 140 km southeast of Copiapo, Chile. The program will evaluate potential heap-leaching on the oxidized part of the high-sulphidation copper-gold-silver deposit. Step-out holes are planned north and south of the resource, which is open in both directions. Three exploration holes will test the Filo North, Filo South and Cerro Vicuna targets, which occur within 2 km of the deposit. Filo North is thought to host a feeder zone to the Filo del Sol deposit, whereas surface sampling at Filo South has outlined a 1,000- by 200-metre wide, northwest-trending zone of gold-copper breccias. At Cerro Vicuna, drilling will target a conical hill underlain by a silicified and stockwork porphyry intrusive, with grab samples returning up to 5 grams gold per tonne from surface.