Venture climbs slightly as volume returns in Jan. 9-13 period

Vancouver – The second week of the New Year saw the S&P TSX Venture Composite Index climb 10.3 points to 1,536.03 points after two days of losses and three days of gains. Activity in the January 9 to 13 period was back up to pre-holiday levels, averaging 99 million shares traded per day, though daily trading volumes ranged from 83 million to 130 million a day.

U3O8 Corp. was markedly up after it released initial metallurgical results from its Berlin project in Colombia showing 97% recovery for uranium and phosphate and 79% for vanadium and other metals. The company achieved the results using a ferric leach and then acid wash, estimating the cost of the ferric leach process at between $60 and $95 per tonne. The company also expects a maiden resource estimate for Berlin to be out soon. U3O8 Corp’s share price climbed 20¢ or 57% to 55¢ with 2.8 million shares traded.

Also in the uranium space, Forum Uranium was the most active stock with 30 million shares traded as the company’s stock price climbed 2.5¢ to 8.5¢. The company released no news in the period, but it announced in November it would start a 4,000-metre drill program at its Northwest Athabasca project in early January. The company is jointly earning 60% of the project with Mega Uranium from Cameco. Forum also owns 40% of the Henday project, with Hathor, now owned by Rio Tinto, holding the rest. Dundee Capital Markets analyst David Talbot cited Forum in December as a possible takeover target.

Quest Rare Minerals ended up 22¢ at $3.01 after having climbed to a high of $3.26 on positive drill results. Quest intersected 144.4 metres grading 1.44% total rare earth oxides from 6 metres depth and 116.1 metres averaging 1.23% total rare earth oxides from 10 metres downhole at its BZone prospect. The two holes had heavy rare earth content of 45.6% and 40.4% respectively, while in the overall drill program the heavy content ranged from 22.4% to 76.5%. The company is working to complete a prefeasibility study on the BZone deposit and upgrade resources.

Several penny stocks saw a doubling of their share price during the period, generally on no news. Strata Minerals doubled to 14¢, Abbastar Resources to 18¢, Teslin River Resources to 10¢, Noble Metal Group to 2¢, and Dolly Varden Resources to 32¢. Of the lot, only Teslin released news, reporting sample results of up to 1,200 parts per million copper at the Frasergold project near Williams Lake, British Columbia. The 2011 geochemical program at Frasegold sampled 27 line km over three zones. Teslin is earning in 51% of the project.

St. Elias Mines had a tough week, its share price plunging by more than half at one point before ending down 49¢ at $1.21. The decline came after the company released 2011 drill results from its Tesoro gold project in Peru that consisted of numerous gold hits generally well under a metre in width. The longest interval in the 11 holes released was in hole 6, with 1 metre grading 1.05 grams gold per tonne from 125 metres downhole, though not true width. St. Elias saw 16.6 million shares traded in the period.