Cassiar Gold Corp. (TSXV: GLDC, OTCQX: CGLCF)
Revitalizing the Cassiar Gold District in British Columbia, Canada
According to the weekly roundup by Investing News Network on the top-performing Canadian mining and energy stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange and TSX Venture Exchange, Big Ridge Gold, Almaden Minerals, and Prairie Provident Resources saw their stock prices surge by over 50% during the five trading days before market close of last Friday (September 20th).
After the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by 50 basis points last Wednesday, US stocks soared significantly at the opening on Thursday. By the close of Thursday, the S&P 500 index rose by 1.72% to 5713.65 points, the Nasdaq 100 index surged by 2.55% to 19,838.94 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed by 1.24% to 42,024.7 points.
Meanwhile, the precious metals market saw a sharp rise following the Fed’s rate cut announcement, with the price of gold hitting a new high of $2,625.46 per ounce during Friday′s trading session, closing at $2,622.12 per ounce; silver prices peaked at $31.39 per ounce before settling at $31.20 per ounce. Below are the details of the three Canadian resource stocks with the largest gains last week.
Weekly gain: 72.73 percent; market cap: C$15.88 million; share price: C$0.10
Big Ridge Gold is an exploration company that has been working on advancing its flagship Hope Brook gold project in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada for most of 2024. The project is located on the southwest coast of Newfoundland Island and encompasses 1003 mineral claim blocks under 5 licenses, covering a total area of 25,075 hectares, which previously produced 752,163 ounces of gold between 1987 and 1997.
According to the updated mineral resource estimate report from April 2023, the Hope Brook project holds indicated resources of 1.21 million ounces of gold with an average gold grade of 2.32 grams per ton, and inferred resources of 231,000 ounces with an average grade of 3.24 grams per ton.
On March 28th, the company announced the issuance of 10 million common shares to First Mining Gold (TSX: FF, OTCQX: FFMGF) in accordance with an agreement signed in April 2021, increasing its ownership in the project from 51% to 80%. First Mining will retain the remaining 20% interest in the project area until Big Ridge completes the feasibility study for the project. The sudden surge in the company’s stock price has drawn investors’ attention, as no press releases were issued by the company recently.
Weekly gain: 60 percent; market cap: C$10.98 million; share price: C$0.08
Almaden Minerals is a company focused on gold and silver exploration, and is actively advancing the Ixtaca gold-silver deposit in the state of Puebla, Mexico. According to the company’s website, the deposit was discovered by the Almaden team in 2010 and has undergone over 200,000 meters of drilling across 500 drill holes.
In July 2018, the estimated mineral resources indicated that 43.38 million metric tons of ore contain 862,000 ounces of gold and 50.59 million ounces of silver. The inferred resources indicated that 80.76 million metric tons of ore contain 1.15 million ounces of gold and 58.87 million ounces of silver, with a cutoff grade at 0.3 grams per ton.
In 2022, due to permit status issues, the Ixtaca project is currently at a standstill. On June 27, the company announced an update on the permit status, confirming up to $9.5 million in litigation financing to support international arbitration proceedings against Mexico under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Weekly gain: 50 percent; market cap: C$39.39 million; share price: C$0.045
Prairie Provident Resources is an oil and gas exploration, development, and production company with assets in Alberta, Canada. According to the company’s management discussion and analysis report for the first six months of 2024, the average daily production reported by the company during this period was 2,341 barrels of oil equivalent, a significant decrease compared to the 3,648 barrels of oil equivalent during the same period in 2023.
The management attributed this decline to the sale of the Evi asset in northern Alberta and well servicing, as well as natural production decline. Prairie Provident’s stock price recently received a boost, which can be attributed to a news release by the company on September 13. The company announced that it had reached an agreement to extend the maturity date of its senior secured credit facility to March 31, 2026. It also announced a $13.2 million rights offering, with $11.6 million in committed funding coming from Prairie Provident’s largest shareholder, PCEP Canadian Holdco, and an additional C$400,000 from Prairie’s directors and management.
The company stated that it intends to use the raised funds to drill at least two additional wells in the Basal Quartz formation by the end of 2024 and to conduct workovers on existing wells to enhance productivity.
