Top 5 Canadian Mining Stocks This Week: Gold Stocks Surge as Price Strength Continues

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 spent much of 2024 working to advance its flagship Hope Brook gold project in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Located on the southwest coast of the island of Newfoundland, the site consists of 1,003 claims in 5 licenses over 25,075 hectares. It has hosted historic mining operations between 1987 and 1997 and produced 752,163 ounces of gold.

The most recent mineral resource estimate, released in April 2023, showed indicated resources of 1.21 million ounces of gold with an average grading of 2.32 grams per metric ton (g/t), with additional inferred resources of 231,000 ounces with an average grading of 3.24 g/t gold.

On March 28, the company announced it had increased its ownership stake in the project from 51 percent to 80 percent after it issued 10 million common shares to First Mining Gold (TSX:FF,OTCQX:FFMGF) as part of its April 2021 earn in agreement. First Mining will retain the remaining 20 percent in the property until Big Ridge completes a feasibility study on the project.

Big Ridge released its most recent news for Hope Brook in July, when it announced its 2024 work program.

Weekly gain: 60 percent; market cap: C$10.98 million; share price: C$0.08

Almaden Minerals is a precious metals exploration company working to advance the Ixtaca gold and silver deposit in Puebla, Mexico. According to the company website, the deposit was discovered by Almaden’s team in 2010 and has seen more than 200,000 meters of drilling across 500 holes.

A July 2018 mineral resource estimate shows measured resources of 862,000 ounces of gold and 50.59 million ounces of silver from 43.38 million metric tons of ore, and indicated resources of 1.15 million ounces of gold and 58.87 million ounces of silver from 80.76 million metric tons of ore with a 0.3 g/t cutoff.

In February 2022, Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice (SCJN) ruled that the initial licenses issued in 2002 and 2003 would be reverted back to application status after the court found there had been insufficient consultation when the licenses were originally assigned.

Ultimately, the applications were denied in February 2023, effectively halting progress on the Ixtaca project. While subsequent court cases have preserved Almaden’s mineral rights, it has yet to restore the licenses to continue work on the project.

The most recent update on the state of the company’s licenses came on June 27, when it announced it had confirmed up to US$9.5 million in litigation financing that will be used to fund international arbitrations 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 throughout Alberta, Canada.

According to an August 13 management discussion and analysis for the first six months of 2024, the company reported an average daily production of 2,341 barrels of oil equivalent, a sharp decline from the 3,648 barrels of oil equivalent during the same period in 2023.

The company attributes this decline to the sale of its Evi property in Northern Alberta, as well as well servicing and natural declines.

Prairie Provident’s share price has seen a recent boost following news on September 13 that it had entered into an agreement to extend the maturity of its senior secured credit facility to March 31, 2026. It also announced a C$13.2 million rights offering, with C$11.6 million of 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 said it will use proceeds to fund the drilling of at least two wells in the Basal Quartz formation before the end of 2024, along with workovers of existing wells to improve productivity.

Weekly gain: 35.71 percent; market cap: C$114.66 million; share price: C$1.90

Serabi Gold is a gold producer and explorer that owns the Palito mining complex and the Coringa gold mine in Northern Brazil.

In the company’s Q2 production results and operational highlights released on July 17, Serabi reported that it had produced 18,101 ounces of gold during the first six months of the year, an increase over the 16,523 ounces produced during the same period in 2023. On a per-mine basis, Palito produced 9,386 ounces of gold while Coringa produced 8,623 ounces.

The gold company maintained its production guidance for 2024 at 38,000 to 40,000 ounces of gold.

In its most recent operational update on September 9, Serabi reported that upgrades at Coringa were on schedule and on budget with the ore sorter having been delivered and the ground works for the installation of the crushing plant progressing well.

Additionally, the company reported results from a 3,500 meter surface drill program at Palito targeting a southern step-out extension at the G3 vein. The returned assays included a highlight intercept of 20.47 g/t gold over 3.15 meters, including 43.72 g/t gold over 1.45 meters.

Weekly gain: 33.33 percent; market cap: C$41.28 million; share price: C$0.10

Roscan Gold is an exploration and development company working to advance its Kandiole project in the Republic of Mali. The company’s permits cover an area of 288.8 square kilometers and host several mineralized targets.

The company hasn’t made any exploration announcements in 2024, but has continued to raise funding. The most recent news came on September 11 when Roscan announced it had been approved by the TSX Venture exchange to extend the maturity date of its promissory notes of C$1 million.

In the release, the company also announced it intends to complete a non-brokered private placement with company director Michael Gentile for C$300,000.

On Monday (September 16), Roscan announced changes to its board of directors, with Nana Sangmuah being appointed as executive chairman and Rahul Paul being appointed to the board.