US stocks rise, Sept.15-19

U.S. equities ended the trading week in positive territory. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 292 points to end at 17,279.74, while the S&P 500 Index rose 25 points to 2,010.40. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 12 points to 4,579.79. The spot price for gold, however, tumbled US$12.10 per oz. to US$1,216.20. 

Midway Gold was the top percentage gainer, moving 13% to US$1.01. The Denver, Colo.-based firm updated its Pan gold heap-leach project in Nevada’s White Pine County, where mining began on Sept. 15. The firm is targeting its first gold pour later this year.

The junior says the completion schedule has slipped by a month due to heavy mid-year rainfall and complexities related to Nevada’s fire code. Despite the delay, Midway does not expect cost overruns at the project, but cautions that if there is more unseasonably bad weather or factors out of its control, the first gold pour could happen in early 2015.

A 2011 feasibility study envisioned Pan as a US$99-million mine development, producing 81,000 oz. gold a year at fully loaded costs of US$824 per oz. over a nine-year life.

Asanko Gold advanced 9%, or US21¢ to US$2.46, after confirming the resource for the first phase of its Asanko gold mine project in Ghana, which included a maiden resource for the newly discovered Dynamite Hill deposit — one of the four satellite pits from the first phase. The main pit is called “Nkran.”

Together the deposits host 49.6 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 2.2 grams gold for 3.54 million oz., plus 15.6 million inferred tonnes of 1.96 grams gold for 990,000 oz. at a 0.8 gram-per-tonne gold cut-off grade.

Raymond James analyst Chris Thompson notes  that while the resource is “not materially different” from PMI Gold’s 2012 estimate, it could lead to a definitive project plan later this year, which would “serve as a blueprint to unlock the value opportunity offered by one of West Africa’s largest untapped reserve and resource inventories.”

Phase one is under construction and set to produce its first gold in early 2016, and 200,000 oz. gold a year by mid-2016.

Asanko will build the project in two phases. Thompson has a $4 target and an “outperform” rating on the stock.

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