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Gold/Mining/Energy : Northern Abitibi Mining (NAI-ASE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr Metals who wrote (456)	5/18/1998 12:08:00 AM
From: Wizzer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 773

Leaks suspected behind fall in junior Voisey's stocks Saturday, May 16, 1998 By PETER KUITENBROUWER The Financial Post A plunge this week in the shares of two junior mining firms drilling for nickel in Labrador has once again raised concerns someone is leaking news about the project. The stock of Donner Minerals Ltd. and Northern Abitibi Mining Corp. began to drop suddenly Tuesday on no news. On Thursday morning, about 3 1/2 hours into the trading day, the Vancouver and Alberta exchanges halted trading in both stocks. They asked the firms to publish results from their joint drilling program in South Voisey's Bay after the two companies confirmed there was no new information to report. Donner had lost about 25% of its value, Northern Abitibi 35%. "It reflects very badly on the companies when they have movement on no news," Angela Huxham, director of surveillance at the VSE, said Friday. The halts were lifted after the firms put out a news release late Thursday with a description of two drill cores including "semi-massive sulphides." Mining analyst Wendell Zerb at Pacific International Securities Inc. in Vancouver said investors would interpret those findings as "not up to expectations." The drillers seek "massive sulphides," which would indicate plentiful nickel, copper and cobalt. Last December, the two exchanges teamed up to investigate after shares in Northern Abitibi, Donner and Cypress Minerals Corp., another South Voisey's prospector, rose suddenly on no news. Huxham said Friday her probe ended with no clear evidence an insider broke the rules. "There's a bunch of people working on a property, so it's almost impossible to establish where rumors originate," she said. "It could be a guy on site phoning his broker here. "Shareholders want to know that there's a level playing field and that's why we halt the stock until there is news." Tim Daly, head of market surveillance at the ASE, played down the latest stock movement, saying, "the stock wasn't off that much and the news wasn't that significant." He said his probe of last fall's Northern Abitibi stock surge continues. Harvey Keats, president of Donner, said Friday there can be no leaks from the site because the satellite phone in the drill shack is programmed to dial only the drill foreman or emergency crews. "Everybody - drillers, helicopter pilots - has signed a confidentiality agreement," he added. "I've been informed that the only phone call made out of that exploration program was to me." He said that call came just before the VSE phoned to ask why the stock was dropping. "Obviously there were some [investors] who wanted to take some money off the table," he said. But Northern Abitibi spokeswoman Leslie Hayes disputed Keats' description of the camp. "The guys in the field will know if we've hit the right kind of rock and there is communications potential from lots of different places and many different little pieces of information," she said. "It's a difficult situation to control." Donner Minerals shares (DML/VSE) closed at $2.01 Friday, down 5›, while Northern Abitibi (NAI/ASE) ended the day at $1.12, off 8›.