TSX Venture resumes climb

The TSX Venture exchange collected itself and resumed its forward march. After falling four straight days over the previous period the holiday shortened Sept. 4-7 period saw the index climb 31 points to 1,276.71 points on the back of renewed enthusiasm for commodities.

The move came after the European Central Bank (ECB) said it would buy unlimited amounts of bonds from the faltering European nations – so long as they ask for assistance and agree to austerity. The ECB said it would offset such buying by selling other assets to temper inflation. The resource heavy Venture exchange was also helped by news from south of the border. While U.S. employment numbers were worse than expected, that fact only redoubled investors’ belief that the Federal Reserve must pursue another round of stimulus — which would be good for commodities.

The market got behind Bitterroot Resources and its nickel, copper and platinum group metals properties in Michigan. The company’s shares were up 200% to 12¢ after it said it had finished an aeromagnetic survey. Much of the attention can be attributed to its neighbor, Rio Tinto. Rio recently completed land acquisitions and drilling on parcels of land adjoining Bitterroot’s ground — in fact some of Rio Tinto’s drill collars are as close as 180 metres to Bitterroot’s mineral rights. The company says its own survey identified a number of new targets that could host conduit dyke systems similar to Rio’s Eagle deposit which contains 3.2 million tonnes grading 3.89% nickel and 3.04% copper. The Eagle mine is under construction and is expected to be in full production by 2014.

Giyani Gold also enjoyed a strong run as its share price climbed 28¢ to $1.29 after it announced that its drills struck the projected down plunge of the Klein Letaba gold deposit in South Africa. The intercept came at 187 metres vertical depth and returned 15.1 metres grading 13.16 grams gold. Giyani says the intercept proves the depth extension of its deposits extend beyond previous historic Klein Letaba mine workings. While it says more holes are needed to establish true thickness it added that the zone occurs in basalts with ultramafic affinity below a sedimentary unit which is a similar setting to a number of gold deposits in the Timmins-Porcupine area in Ontario.

The market didn’t respond nearly so well to Uravan Minerals’ drill results. The company saw its share price fall by 69% to 10¢ after releasing results from its Halliday Lake project in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin. While Uravan says the five diamond drill-holes returned anomalous measures of radioactivity, none were at quantitative levels. Anomalous radioactivity can indicate the presence of a mineralizing process but no economic uranium mineralization was hit upon in the drill program.