Venture flat in August 7-10 period

VANCOUVER — The S&P TSX Venture Composite Index basically ended flat in the shortened August 7 to 10 period, up less than a point at 1,191 points even after two days of losses balanced out two days of gains. Volume was also little changed with an average of 67 million shares traded daily.

Antioquia Gold was the highest percentage gainer as it climbed from 7¢ to 16¢ in the period on 840,000 shares traded. The Colombia-focused company announced it had completed phase one of a 20,000-metre drill program at its Cisneros project, which focused entirely on the Guayabito deposit. Results from the program included 4.7 metres grading 13.93 grams gold per tonne, 10.5 metres averaging 3.7 grams gold, and 9.2 metres grading 4.31 grams gold. The drilling has expanded the length of known mineralization to roughly 300 metres and confirmed continuity to almost 500 metres depth.

Gold Reach Resources bounced back somewhat in the period, climbing 22¢ to end at $1.40. The company, exploring its Ootsa project adjacent to the producing Huckleberry mine in northern British Columbia, climbed from around 60¢ to a high of $2.13 in June before releasing the first results from a drill program on the property and falling to $1.50. At the end of July the company released two more drill hole results, showing a 593.6-metre interval grading 0.32% copper equivalent and a 961.2-metre hole grading 0.34% copper equivalent, which sent the company down to as low as $1.02. The company plans to drill a minimum of 25,000 metres at the property with three rigs.

Unigold reported new drill results from its Candelones project in the Dominican Republic, making for another active week for itself and nearby explorer Goldquest Mining. The two companies were again the most traded companies on the Venture, with Unigold clocking in at 16 million shares traded and Goldquest with 8.6 million shares traded. Unigold’s results included 89 metres grading 1.72 grams gold and 122 metres carrying 0.73 gram gold, both 100-metre step-outs to the southwest at its Candelones Extension target. Unigold dropped 9¢ to end at 40¢ on the news, while Goldquest dropped 10¢ to end at $1.51.

Roxgold also had an active week with 4.6 million shares traded after releasing a first resource estimate for its Yaramoko project in Burkina Faso. The resource established 617,000 indicated tonnes grading 17.8 grams gold for 354,000 contained oz., plus 1.2 million inferred tonnes grading 7.7 grams gold for a further 306,000 oz. gold. The high-grade resource used a 2-grams-gold cut-off, and was based only on the 55 zone of the property. The news had the company ending down 7¢ at 47¢, having dropped from a high of $2.27 in March. The company is also still in the midst of a proxy battle after management postponed its AGM until September 25.

Maudore Minerals, which just wrapped up its own proxy battle in mid-July, was the second-highest value gainer in the period with a 22¢ climb to $2.67. The company announced no news in the period, and has not released any news since the new board of directors was elected on July 19. When the company announced the new leadership team its stock price stood at $2.86, having fallen from a high of $6.15 last November.