TSX up, Jan. 4-8

The S&P/TSX Composite Index rose 3.37% to 18,042.07 during the Jan. 4-8 trading week. The S&P/TSX Global Mining Index climbed 7.22% to 109.70, and the S&P/TSX Global Base Metals Index jumped 10.23% to 156.09. Spot gold dropped US$48 per oz., or 2.53%, to US$1,850 per oz., and the S&P/TSX Global Gold Index rose by 1.8% to 321.10.

Teck Resources advanced $1.76 to $24.86 per share. The company signed a joint management agreement with B.C.’s Ktunaxa Nation for more than 7,000 hectares of land Teck purchased for conservation in 2013. Under the agreement, the Ktunaxa Nation and Teck agreed to jointly manage the land for conservation purposes protecting significant fish and wildlife habitat. The agreement will also support the Ktunaxa Nation Stewardship Principles and Teck’s goal to achieve a net positive impact on biodiversity in the areas where it operates. Teck and the Ktunaxa Nation said they would begin implementing the agreement this month, including developing conservation management plans with input from communities and other stakeholders.

Shares of Eldorado Gold dropped by 20¢ to $16.87 per share. The company reported production results for 2020 of 528,874 oz. gold, a 34% increase over 2019, despite restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic that forced it to temporarily halt its Lamaque mine in Quebec. Production last year was in line with the Canadian miner’s guidance of between 520,000 and 550,000 oz. of gold, largely due to Lamaque, which exceeded guidance. The mine yielded 138,220 oz. gold in the fourth quarter of 2020 alone, a 16% increase from the same period the previous year. The strong performance at Lamaque was partially offset by lower labour availability impacting leach pad flow rates at the Kisladag mine in Turkey during the second quarter. Production was also hit last year by an output drop at its Efemcukuru underground mine, also in Turkey, and at its Olympias gold-silver-lead-zinc mine in northern Greece. 

SilverCrest Metals fell by 47¢ to $13.72 per share. The company announced that it had entered into a $120 million credit agreement with an affiliate of RK Mine Finance. The money will fund the construction of SilverCrest’s flagship Las Chispas silver-gold project in Sonora, Mexico. The $120-million, four-year project finance facility carries a total cost of capital estimated at 10% and does not require hedging, offtakes, or production-linked payments. At the same time, SilverCrest entered into a fixed price, $76.5 million engineering, procurement, and construction contract with Ausenco for the construction of a 1,250 tonne-per-day process plant at Las Chispas. Ausenco’s work is scheduled to start in February. Plant start-up is planned for the second quarter of 2022, with production ramp-up beginning in the third quarter of 2022.