TSX Venture climbs with commodities

The TSX Venture Exchange made a modest gain of 12 points to 1,258.97 points for the Nov. 19-23 period as global markets shrugged off their past selling ways and embraced a more positive outlook on the state of the world.

Investors turn to a slightly more bullish mood came as fears of an economic catastrophe connected to the fiscal cliff abated somewhat and some good economic indicators came out of Germany. The buying mood spread into commodities as oil was up a buck to US$88.28 per barrel, gold rose US$37 to US$1,751.40 per oz. and copper climbed 8¢ to US$3.53 per oz.

Probe Mines saw its share price rise by 27¢ to $2.13 after it announced it had sold its royalty interest in the Goldex gold mine near Val d’Or, Quebec, to the former mine’s owner, Agnico-Eagle Mines, for $18-million. Probe will get $14-million at the closing of the deal, while an additional payment of $2.5-million will come in cash or shares if the mine is re-started and Probe’s former interest accounts for 17,320 oz. of production. Another $1.5 million goes to Probe if its portion of the royalty exceeds 20,320 oz. Agnico indefinitely suspended operations Goldex back in the fall of 2011 because of water inflow and ground instability. Probe plans to use the capital to fund work at its Borden Lake gold project in Northern Ontario.

Midway Gold also arranged a financing and also got a boost as the company’s shares were up 25¢ to $1.51 for the period. The movement came after it announced it had arranged a US$70 million private placement financing for five year 8% convertible preferred shares at a price of US$1.85 per share. The financing, provided by Hale Capital Partners, gets Midway closer to its goal of becoming Nevada’s next gold producer and the company was able to do so without incurring a hedge on its future gold production or committing to any security over its assets. Proceeds from the private placement will go towards getting the Pan heap leach project into production and engineering studies to advance the Gold Rock project.

Despite saying that the recent rebel activity in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo hadn’t affected its operations, Loncor Resources still saw its share price slide by 11¢ to 87¢. Loncor said exploration activities at its high priority Ngayu project have been unaffected by the rising violence as it sits 420-km northwest of the provincial capital city of Goma, where the M23 rebel group over-took the city. Drilling continues as planned at Ngayu with two rigs and will carry on until early December when activities are normally halted over the Holiday period. A recent U.N. report alleges that both Uganda and Rwanda are supporting the rebels, who plan to march towards the capital of Kinshasa.