TSX Venture eases down, April 17-21

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index shed 8.5 points to an 824.7-point close over the trading week, as spot gold prices lost US$1.25 to US$1,284.44 per oz., and Comex copper prices fell 4¢ to $2.55 per pound.

Shares of Camino Minerals surged $1.41, or 402%, to $1.76, following results from the first two holes of a 3,000-metre, reverse-circulation drill program at the company’s Los Chapitos project in southern Peru. The holes, which intercepted 106 metres of 1.3% copper and 76 metres of 0.5% copper, confirm the downdip extension of the surface oxide mineralization at the project’s Adriana zone. The Adriana zone is one of five relatively untested targets along a 5 km trend in the northeastern part of the 67 sq. km property. The mineralization occurs within the same geological formations that hosts the iron-oxide copper-gold Mina Justa deposit, 100 km northwest, which has 374 million tonnes grading 0.7% copper and 9 grams silver per tonne.

Barkerville Gold Mines saw 10.4 million shares traded, rising 9¢ to $1.01 per share, on drill results from its 130,000-metre Island Mountain and Valley exploration program at the company’s flagship Cariboo gold project in southcentral British Columbia. The company found a network of high-grade veins 250 metres below Island Mountain’s Shaft zone, which returned 32.1 grams gold per tonne over 30.7 metres (including subintervals of 0.5 metre of 272 grams gold, 0.9 metre of 760 grams gold and 0.5 metre of 42.8 grams gold). Another mineralization zone, located 420 metres below the Shaft zone, returned drill intercepts of 28.6 metres of 11.4 grams gold (including subintervals of 6.6 metres of 30.8 grams gold and 8.2 metres of 12.1 grams gold). The company expects to begin small-scale underground mining within the next three months at the project’s Bonanza Ledge and BC Vein deposits. It recently sold a 0.75% net smelter return royalty to Osisko Gold Royalties for $12.5 million.

Assay results up to 877 grams silver from rock-chip samples at Arizona Silver Exploration’s Ramsey project in La Paz County, Ariz., drove shares up 19¢ to 50¢. The highest value is from a composite sample of the mine dump below the abandoned Creosote vein shaft. Silver values between 43 and 44 grams were also collected from outcrops located 150 metres along geological strike south of the shaft, whereas geophysical surveys conducted by the company indicate a possible vein extension to the north undercover.

Archon Minerals — a junior company that owns 34.7% interest in the Buffer zone at Dominion Diamond’s Ekati diamond mine — rose 22¢ to $1.67 per share on news of first production at Buffer’s Lynx kimberlite pipe. Lynx is the Archon’s first kimberlite pipe to reach production, and has proven and probable reserves of 1 million tonnes at 0.8 carat per tonne.