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Investors should keep an eye on Goldquest Mining, Raging River Exploration and Aurcana, all of which traded at high volumes on the TSX Venture board last week.
Oil and gas producer Raging River Exploration (TSXV:RRX) was the most actively-traded stock on the TSX Venture last Friday, with a volume of 2,252,419 and a small loss in stock price of 0.91 percent. It closed at C$2.18.
Last week, the five-month old Saskatchewan-based junior reported net earnings of $3.4 million on cash flow of $7.5 million. The company had netbacks of $48.11 per barrel of oil equivalent (boe) for the three months ending June 30. It booked an average production of 1,711 boe/day (97 percent oil and liquids).
The company also announced that it upped its expectations for its 2012 fiscal year exit production to 2,300 boe/day, up from earlier estimates of 2,200 boe/day.
President and CEO Neil Roszell was surprised by the increased output, noting that initial productivity from the company’s Viking horizontal wells was stronger than expected. He believes the wells could continue to exceed initial projections.
New completion techniques and strategies that allowed the wells to produce at rates 50 to 70 percent higher than historical well productivity in the area were credited with producing the higher output.
These figures initially boosted the company’s stock price early last week as analysts had projected that production numbers and cash flow levels would be down as a result of lower oil prices and wet weather impacting production schedules.
Production at Viking was stimulated by an extraction method referred to as “waterfloods,” which injects water to flush out residual oil in formations that are targeted by horizontal and vertical drilling rigs. Roszell acknowledged the impact that these hydraulic fracture stimulations have had for the company in recent months and will have leading forward.
GoldQuest Mining (TSXV:GQC) was the second-most actively traded TSX Venture stock last week, gaining 8.92 percent to close at $1.71 after 1,973,443 trades were made.
Already doing well, the company continued to receive positive attention from the market after releasing strong assay results from its Romero property, located in the Dominican Republic, in late July.
Those assays added to other strong mineralization results released for the property earlier this summer, and indicate significant mineralization, including 258 meters grading 4.5 grams/tonne (g/t) gold and 1.3 percent copper as well as an upper section of 55 meters grading 1.25 g/t gold.
The company also announced that it will conduct further drilling of Romero once a larger drill rig can be brought in to assist the two currently in operation. The company hopes to build off of the mineralization at its nearby La Escandalosa property, which has a NI 43-101 inferred resource of 3.129 Mt at 3.14 g/t gold, or 316,000 ounces.
GoldQuest holds a 100 percent stake in eight Dominican properties and has been operating in the country since 2001. Its most advanced property to date is Las Animas, which holds an indicated 1 million tonnes of 2.64 g/t gold and is currently undergoing metallurgical testing.
The Dominican Republic is also home to one of the largest gold properties in the world, including the 25.3-million-ounce proven and probable Pueblo Viejo gold mine belonging to Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX,NYSE:ABX) and Goldcorp (TSX:G,NYSE:GG). It is set to begin operations this year.
Finally, Aurcana (TSXV:AUN), a Canadian silver miner with operations in Texas and Mexico, was the fourth-most actively traded company at the end of week, with a volume of 1,882,107.
The company’s Q2 report, which it released last week, fell in line with Wall Street analysts’ projections, according to Thomson Reuters data. It posted a net income from mining operations of $3.4 million for the first six months of 2012. These figures represent a 50 percent increase from the same period in 2011 and were largely attributed to the expansion of the company’s Mexico-based La Negra silver mine.
The La Negra mine, an existing production site in operation between1970 and 2000, witnessed a 32 percent increase in tonnes of ore processed during the second quarter of 2012 while producing 45 percent more silver ounces (373,037) during the same period.
The company also completed a second mill expansion at La Negra, boosting processing capacity to 2,500 tonnes per day. Drilling programs continue to delineate mineral bodies on Aurcana’s 99.9 percent-owned property.
Aurcana’s Texas-based Shafter project boasts a silver resource of 24.6 million measured and indicated ounces and 22.8 million ounces inferred. The mine is expected to recover 3.9 million ounces of silver in its first year of production.
Shares in the company closed Friday at 93 cents, up 8.14 percent.
Securities Disclosure: I, James Wellstead, hold no investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.