Montreal Exchange New Aur program

A new exploration program involving about 20,000 ft. of drilling and costing about $500,000 at three Louvicourt Twp. properties (in the Val d’Or, Que., area) of Consolidated Abitibi Resources was started up this month by Aur Resources, the companies reported. Aur, which slipped 13 cents to $3.75 on 5,900 shares during the week ended May 7, may earn up to a 70% interest in the properties by spending $3.5 million on exploration work by the end of 1993. Trading 88,200 shares, Abitibi gained 11 cents to 50 cents.

Both the market portfolio and mining and minerals index were off for the week, the former by 1.6 points and the latter by 10.5 points. Daily trading volumes ranged between 2.6 million and 7.6 million shares. The ME reported that the dollar value traded in its equity market during April totalled $1.3 billion, down from the previous month.

At the Sleeping Giant gold property of Aurizon Mines north of Amos, Que., joint venture partner Cambior is continuing its active drilling program involving six underground rigs and one surface rig. Aurizon, which gained 2 cents to 22 cents on 347,300 shares, is confident new mineralized zones will be uncovered. Cambior, which announced a large jump in first-quarter gold production from its various properties compared with the same period last year, dropped 13 cents to $9.38 on a volume of 68,200.

Dumont Nickel said it has entered into an agreement with TSE-listed Timmins Nickel which will allow the latter to earn a 55% interest in Dumont’s nickel property near Amos. Timmins Nickel will undertake a $1.5-million exploration program involving in part a prefeasibility study. Dumont gained 8 cents on the week to 18 cents on 68,500 shares.