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by Will Purcell

The critical and specialty minerals stocks box score on Friday was a ho-hum 82-94-134 as the TSX Venture Exchange rose five points to 854. Hugues Jacquemin's Northern Graphite Inc. (NGC) lost 1.5 cents to 19 cents on 329,000 shares on word it has accelerated a maintenance shutdown at its Lac des Iles graphite mine in Quebec because of an "unexpected equipment issue."

Essentially, a bearing failure in a hard-to-get piece of equipment forced the mill to close, and with a four-to-six-week wait for a replacement and a scheduled maintenance shutdown scheduled for January, the company has decided to do the annual maintenance now, since it is forced to wait for the replacement equipment. This allows it "to avoid having two separate shutdowns," says Mr. Jacquemin, chief executive officer.

Mark Appleby's Tartisan Nickel Corp. (TN), down one-half cent to 9.5 cents on 42,000 shares, is getting set for a 3,600-metre drill program at its Kenbridge nickel project, near Kenora in Northwestern Ontario. The drilling includes stepout holes on priority targets, seeking downdip and depth extensions to the existing deposit and to collect new data in support of future mine design. As well, Tartisan looks to upgrade parts of the existing resource.

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