TSX Top 4: Minera and Champion Iron Up 25 Percent

The top gainers on the TSX last week were Minera, Champion Iron, Aureus Mining and Western Potash. They all enjoyed share price increases of over 20 percent.

Despite market turmoil last week in part due to Wednesday’s shooting at Parliament Hill in Ottawa, some companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange managed to post impressive gains.

Those include Minera (TSX:IRL), Champion Iron (TSX:CIA), Aureus Mining (TSX:AUE) and Western Potash (TSX:WPX). Here’s a brief look at what sparked their gains.

Minera

Minera, a precious metals producer and developer working in Latin America, gained 26.32 percent to trade at $0.12 last week. The company operates the producing Corihuarmi gold mine and is developing the Ollachea gold project; both are in Peru. The latest news from Minera, released at the end of last month, indicates the company continues to work on financing for Ollachea, and has not only permits but also preliminary financing arrangements in place to begin work there.

“We continue to advance financing discussions for our flagship Ollachea Gold Project, which has the key permits in place to commence development,” Courtney Chamberlain, executive chairman of Minera, said in the release. “As previous reported, we have received a Committed Letter of Offer for a $100 million Project Loan Facility from Macquarie Bank.”

Champion Iron

Champion Iron, which rose 25 percent to trade at $0.20 last week, is an exploration and development company working in Canada’s Labrador Trough. On October 27, Champion released its initial resource and reserve statement for the Consolidated Fire Lake North project in Quebec, held by its wholly owned subsidiary Champion Iron Mines. According to the statement, the project has a resource of over 1.2 billion tonnes, including 755 million tonnes of measured and indicated hematite mineralization.

“At a time when we are attracting the interest of industrial and strategic investor groups, it is reassuring to have confirmation of the quality of our major asset and increased confidence in its potential,” Champion Chairman and CEO Michael O’Keeffe said in a release.

Aureus Mining

Aureus Mining works in Liberia and Cameroon, and is in the midst of transitioning from developer to producer. The company is aiming to create Liberia’s first gold mine, and gained 23.33 percent last week to trade at $0.37.

Most recently, on September 30, Aureus released final drill results from a program at its Ndablama gold project, commenting that they “highlight good grades.”

Western Potash

Western Potash, a development company working in Saskatchewan, gained 20.37 percent last week to trade at $0.33. Its Milestone project has proven reserves of 35.84 million tonnes of potash. The company has not released any news since May.