Vancouver Stock Exchange Eurus and Thios continue to climb

The Vancouver market followed eastern markets for the week ended Feb. 5, staging a heathy rebound. The Vancouver composite index jumped 13.26 points to finish at 511.49 while the resource index added 28.64 points, closing at 558.14. Market action continues to be focused around Eurus Resources and Thios Resources and the continuing drilling program on their Rock & Roll joint venture in the Iskut River area of northwestern British Columbia. Eurus hit a high of $3 before settling at $2.65 for a gain of 85 cents. Thios reached a high of $1.21, closing with a relatively modest gain of 8 cents at 98 cents. Trading in both issue was active with 5.6 million shares of Thios changing hands while Eurus traded over 1.8 million shares.

Given the companies’ equal interests in the Rock & Roll property, the discrepancy in their price movements can be partially explained by a difference in cash positions and shares outstanding. Eurus has about 4.8 million shares outstanding, a cash position of $4.5 million and marketable securities worth about $1.5 million. Thios has about 8.5 million shares outstanding and about $1 million in cash. Thios is also planning to do a financing shortly which could be holding back the market to some extent.

Drilling results from the first 14 holes of the drilling program will be released in a batch within the next two weeks. The results are being held back by the assay lab on Prime’s instruction. Prime Equities, which owns large blocks of Eurus and Thios and is manager of the program, perked up over the period, adding 24 cents to close at $1.

Other companies with property in the Iskut River area were active, including Prime companies, Crest Resources and Magenta Development. Magenta traded over 1.3 million shares, hitting a high of 32 cents before finishing up 3 cents at 27 cents. Crest jumped 12 cents to close at 35 cents.

The two companies recently granted Adrian Resources the right to earn a 50% interest in their Phiz property, about two miles southeast of the Rock & Roll property.

Pacific Sentinel Gold, Almaden Resources and PIC International Prospectors continued to shed value over the week as players nervously await assay results from the recently completed drilling program on the company’s Golden West project in Arizona.

Pacific Sentinel dropped 75 cents to $2.65 while PIC closed down 35 cents at 55 cents, and Almaden finished at 50 cents, off from the 90 cents level.

Silver Talon Mines did well over theperiod, closing at $1.95 for a gain of 75 cents. The company recently acquired a number of properties, including the Clara Peak and the Black Mountain properties, both in Arizona.

A takeover offer for Norgold Resources didn’t seem to help the issue as it shed a nickel to close at 75 cents. Bema Gold is offering shareholders one share of Bema in return for 2.5 shares of Norgold. Bema finished the week off 25 cents at $2.25.

A steady rise in the share price of Chase Resources was derailed when selling pushed the issue back to $4 from the week’s high of $4.95. Chase is developing a copper project in the Philippines.

All the bad news appears to be out for Miramar Mining after Newmont announced it was dropping the Bruner project in Nevada. Miramar finished up 15 cents at $1.40.