TSX Venture rises, Feb. 15-19

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index climbed 2.92% to finish the Feb. 15-19 trading week at 1,067.44. Spot gold fell US$39.70 per oz. (2.2%) to finish the trading week at US$1,784.60 per ounce.

Uranium explorer ISOEnergy rose 74¢ to $2.98. The junior announced that its co-founder, Craig Parry, is stepping down as president and CEO but will remain on the board. Tim Gabruch will take on the CEO position. Gabruch has clocked over 25 years in the uranium mining and nuclear energy industries, and most recently was Denison Mines’ vice president commercial, where he supported the development of its flagship Wheeler River project. Gabruch also spent more than 20 years at Cameco including as VP Marketing from 2011 to 2017. “It’s an exciting time in the nuclear industry, with the demand for clean nuclear energy growing,” Gabruch stated in a press relate announcing his appointment. “The past decade has been a tough one for uranium suppliers and has resulted in supply-side stress in the global uranium market. With the sector beginning to turn around, the world will need projects like Hurricane and more Canadian uranium discoveries like it to help meet future demand. IsoEnergy recently discovered the high-grade Hurricane zone at its Larocque East property in the Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan and has other exploration projects in the region.

Arizona Metals increased 54¢ to $1.73 on no corporate news. The junior owns 100% of the Kay mine property in Arizona’s Yavapai Country. The Kay mine has a historic non-compliant resource estimate completed by Exxon Minerals in 1982 of 6.4 million tons grading 2.2% copper, 2.8 grams gold per ton, 3.03% zinc and 55 grams silver per ton. Arizona Metals describes the Kay mine as a steeply dipping VMS deposit that has been defined from a depth of 60 metres to at least 900 metres, and is open for expansion on strike and at depth. The junior recently mobilized a second drill rig and began drilling on Feb. 8. The second rig will accelerate the company’s fully funded Phase 2 program, which consists of a minimum of 11,000 metres in 29 holes.

Shares of Medallion Resources jumped 91% to 61¢. The company, which says it has developed a “proprietary process and business model to achieve low-cost, near-term, rare earth element (REE) production” from monazite. (Monazite is a rare-earth phosphate mineral that is widely available as a by-product of mineral sand mining operations. The junior announced a deal on Feb. 18 to acquire a license for exclusive rights to Purdue University-developed REE separation and purification technologies, from Hasler Ventures LLC. Medallion says it will “further develop and commercialize” the process technology. The license, says Medallion, gives the company a portfolio of technology, patents and knowhow for ligand-assisted displacement (LAD) chromatography to deploy in the separation and purification of REEs.