Venture climbs again in Oct. 11-14 period

Vancouver – Continued cautious optimism had the S&P/TSX Venture Composite Index climbing again, up 85.11 points in the shortened October 11-14 trading period to reach 1,557.61 points. The index climbed on three trading days while dropping 10.14 points on one day with an average of 89.5 million shares traded daily.

PMI Gold was one of the stand-outs in the period, climbing 48¢ or 87% to $1.03 with 14.9 million shares traded. The company released a resource update for its Obotan gold project in Ghana that showed a 270% increase in the resource. Spread over four deposits, the project is now estimated to contain 42.2 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 2.4 grams gold per tonne for 3.22 million contained oz. gold, plus 17.5 million inferred tonnes grading 2.35 grams gold for a further 1.3 million oz. gold.

Robex Resources was the only mining company on the Venture to see more trading than PMI, with 20.6 million shares changing hands as the company climbed 2¢ to 23¢. The company released no news in the period, but did release a resource at the peak of the September downturn. Robex’s Nampala gold deposit is estimated to contain 19.9 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.82 gram gold for 524,000 oz. gold in the oxide, plus 7.3 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.81 gram gold in the sulphide for 190,000 oz. gold. Inferred resources add 50,000 oz. grading 0.63 gram gold in the oxide and 766,000 oz. grading 0.96 gram gold in the sulphides.

Probe Mines continued a strong recovery, up 45¢ on four days of gains to close at $2.05, its highest level since December. The gains come after the company climbed 28¢ in two days the period before after hitting an October low of $1.22. The company is working to advance its Borden Lake project, which has a resource estimate of 11.6 million indicated tonnes grading 0.8 gram gold for 305,000 oz., plus inferred resources of 169.3 million tonnes grading 0.69 gram gold for 3.76 million oz. Probe plans to have an updated resource out by the end of the year and metallurgical test results out soon.

Rare earth stocks have taken a beating in recent months, but Tasman Metals was up 67¢ in the period to end at $2.95 on a new property deal. The company announced it had secured the Olserum heavy rare earth project in Sweden, located 100 km east of its flagship Norra Karr project. Tasman bought the new project from a private U.K.-registered company for roughly 38,000 shares. The new project has a 600-metre by 100-metre mineralized zone, while the granted exploration claim covers 11-sq.-km. Tasman hit a 52-week high of $5.98 in April.

Atacama Pacific Gold saw the biggest value drop in the period despite an announced property expansion deal. The company’s stock dropped 42¢in one day on 4,200 shares traded before it announced it had signed an option agreement for the Santa Teresa gold property adjacent to its Cerro Maricunga project in Chile. Following the announcement the company’s stock rallied 12¢ on 30,800 shares to end at $4.20. The Cerro Maricunga property current spans 158.4 sq. km.