TSX Venture falls, March 1-5

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index dropped 9.83% to 918.36. Spot gold fell US$35.50 per oz. to US$1,700.10.

Shares of New Found Gold climbed 48¢ to $3.93. The company announced assay results from its 100%-owned Queensway project, 15 km west of Gander, Newfoundland. An interval drilled about 125 metres down plunge to the south of previously reported intervals in the Keats Zone, doubled the known extent of the high-grade gold mineralization in the zone, the company announced on March 1. Drill hole NFGC-21-04 returned 11.4 metres of 29.1 grams gold per tonne starting from 214.5 metres downhole. The hole was terminated at 255 metres, with visible gold observed in the bottom 0.6 metres of the hole, New Found Gold reported. The 0.6 metre interval was assayed and graded 7.35 grams gold per tonne. Now the company plans to deepen the hole. There are three drill rigs turning at Keats, and they will continue to infill drill and test the zone, the company said. The company has $70 million in working capital – sufficient to continue its 200,000-metre drill program. Major shareholders include Palisades Goldcorp (33%); Eric Sprott (18%); Novo Resources (11%); and Rob McEwen (7%). Management, directors and insiders own 4%.

Gratomic gained 43¢ to $1.60 per share. The company announced it has granted 8.85 million options to directors, officers, employees and consultants of the company exercisable at $1.54 per share for five years. Gratomic is advancing its Aukam graphite project in southern Namibia. The property hosts five underground adits and an open pit, which were mined periodically between 1940 and 1974. Seventy-three samples taken from surface stockpiles from historic mine operations assayed and averaged 42% carbon as graphite. The 1,416 sq. km project is about an hour and a half from the Atlantic Ocean and about 70 km from a rail link. The junior has two off-take agreements for lump-vein graphite and said it expects to start fulfilling the contracts in the first quarter of this year. The company announced that it became debt-free on February 22.

Zen Graphine rose 18¢ to $2.99. The company announced it had signed an implementation agreement with the Constance Lake First Nation for its Albany graphite project in northeastern Ontario. The agreement sets out the governance, roles, responsibilities and activities for establishing the Project Partnership Structure (PPS) to advance the project. The Albany deposit was discovered in 2011. In other news, the company, which describes itself as a next-gen nanomaterials technology company developing graphene-based technologies, announced that surgical masks with the company’s biocidal coating have passed Health Canada testing requirements as a level 2 medical device.