TSX Venture gains, Oct. 2-6

The S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index gained 7.09 points to a 788.32-point close, as spot gold prices fell US$3.07 to US$1,276.68 per oz., whereas Comex copper prices gained US7¢ to US$3.03 per lb. on potential China shortages.

Novo Resources’ Karratha paleo-placer gold project in Western Australia continues to gain market attention, with shares of the company rising $2.07 to $8.40 over the trading period. On Sept. 21, the company received approvals for core drilling and began trenching at the property’s Purdy’s Reward prospect, which is part of a farm-in and joint venture with Australian explorer Artemis Resources. Novo intends to conduct scout drilling to assess the depth and thickness of a prospective, gold-bearing conglomerate horizon, followed by large-diameter, reverse-circulation drill holes to collect bulk samples. Over the past year, local metal detectorists have excavated gold nuggets from the conglomerate along an 8 km, southwest-trending corridor between the Purdy’s Reward and Novo’s Comet Well prospect. Bulk-sample results from a 2-by-2 metre exposure at the top of an 11-metre-thick conglomerate horizon, announced on Aug. 8, returned 87.8 grams gold per tonne and 46.1 grams gold in two subsamples. The company says the mineralization on the property is analogous to the Witwatersrand in South Africa, and is hosted within stratigraphy similar in age to Novo and Sumitomo’s 299,000 oz. Beaton’s Creek gold deposit, west of the town of Nullagine, Western Australia.

Shares of West High Yield jumped from 34¢ to $3.80 before settling to $2 after the firm announced Gryphon Enterprises, a company based in Maryland, U.S., intends to buy West High’s magnesium properties for US$750 million. West High’s most advanced property, Record Ridge, near Rossland, B.C., contains 43 million tonnes of 24.61% magnesium for 11 million tonnes magnesium. A preliminary economic assessment completed in 2013 outlined a 42-year, 80-million-tonne-per-year operation at Record Ridge with initial capital costs of US$608 million. The project has an after-tax net present value, assuming 5%, of US$830 million and 17% after-tax internal rate of return, assuming US$1,100 per tonne of electrofused magnesia, a refined product of magnesium oxide.

B.C. explorers Metallis Resources and Garibaldi Resources saw gains after investments by Eric Sprott. Metallis closed a $2.2-million financing with Sprott, sending shares of the company up 56¢ to $1.58 per share. Metallis issued 2 million units at $1.10 per unit, with each unit consisting of a share and half a warrant. Each whole warrant can be exercised at a price of $1.50 per share within two years. Metallis controls the 106 sq. km Kirkham gold-base metal property in northwestern B.C.’s prolific Golden Triangle district. Garibaldi shares rose 36¢ to $2.25.