Discovery is the opening theme of today’s news round-up, with several explorers having good news to relate.
Andes Energia (LON:AEN) has revealed its fourth discovery in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale play, as the Las Varillas x-1 well was successfully fracked and tested.
Over a 48 hour testing period the well naturally flowed oil at an average rate of 90 barrels per day, and following the installation of artificial lift equipment flow increased to 108 barrels per day.
Rose Petroleum (LON:ROSE) is preparing to verify the commercial merits of its discoveries in its first well in the Mancos play, in Utah. A completion rig is being mobilised for testing operations for the conventional discovery.
Oilex (LON:OEX) plans to drill as many as four new wells at the Cambay field.
The new programme follows the successful production testing of the Cambay-77H proof of concept well, and comes as the company seeks to bring the field into commercial production.
Rare Earth Minerals (LON:REM) has identified more than 200 ironstone targets to follow up at its Yangibana rare earth project in Western Australia.
The areas of interest comprise both strike extensions to known mineralised outcrop and newly identified targets. An airborne survey over the prospect found potentially continuous ironstone over 5.7km between the Bald Hill South and Fraser’s deposits; ironstone indications were also found to the north and south of Yangibana North.
More testing at Armadale Capital’s (LON:ACP) Mpokoto project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has confirmed gold recoveries in the 84-92% range on material sorted by a simple screen.
The test work was carried out on undersized material released by a trommel screen, which will be the process used for phase one production at Mpokoto.
W Resources (LON:WRES) has identified three more tungsten bearing zones at its Regua prospect in Portugal during its latest drilling campaign.
One hole hit a 10 metre thick tungsten intercept grading 0.61% from a depth of 132.72 metres 9m) to 143.2m.
Elsewhere in the mining sector, Gemfields’ (LON:GEM) reported a significant lift to revenues and profits for the six months ended last December. The former grew 57% to US$103.4mln, while the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) more than tripled to US$61.7mln.
Nickel-focused Horizonte Minerals (LON:HZM) ticked off another milestone in its development of the Araguaia project, with positive first stage testing at the pilot plant for the Brazil property.
The drying and agglomeration tests were successful ahead of the full rotary kiln electric furnace (RKEF) pilot plant launch, which is earmarked for next month.
Jubilee Platinum’s (LON:JLP) smelter operation in South Africa more than doubled profits in its latest quarter and has started trial processing of platinum-bearing material.
The Middelburg operation saw revenues rise by 10% for the quarter to December as the amount of ferrochrome produced rose to 2,282 tonnes (from 2,031). Net profits were R2.53mln (£0.14mln) compared to R1.31mln (£0.07mln) three months earlier.
Shares in Anglo Asian Mining (LON:AAZ) headed north as the Azerbaijan-focused miner told of good progress on building its flotation plant at Gedabek, which is aimed at boosting future metal production.
It aims to commission the small scale 20 tonne per hour plant in the third quarter of 2015.
Eurasia Mining (LON:EUA) has received two approaches from parties interested in acquiring some or all of its stake in the Monchetundra asset in Russia.
Elsewhere, the company is pushing through its mining licence application at the PGM exploration interest at West Kytlim, having previously announced that it has received verbal confirmation from two government agencies that the application has cleared the latest stage.
StratMin Resources (LON:STGR) reported steady monthly production growth at its Loharano graphite mine, while sales for February came in at 150 tons.
That compares with 44 tons sold in January this year from the Madagascar mine.
Last year was one of progress for Sula Iron & Gold (LON:SULA) and it now has opportunities to extract value from its iron, gold and coltan projects, it said in its full-year results statement.
In keeping with a company at this stage of development, the loss for the year to end September was £1.4 million compared to a loss of £2.0mln in 2013.
Alecto Minerals (LON:ALO) has signed a co-operation agreement with Desert Gold Ventures (CVE:DAU), the owner of Farabantourou, the tenement adjacent to its Kossanto East project in Mali.
Mark Jones, Alecto's chief executive, said preliminary discussions with potential funding partners for Kossanto East had already started and though early stage, the initial interest had been positive.
Premier African Minerals (LON:PREM) has inked an off-take agreement for the sale of wolframite concentrates from its RHA tungsten mine.
The agreement has been signed with Noble Resources International, and requires Premier to supply 500 tonnes of concentrate over an anticipated initial six month period.
Pricing for concentrates will be based off a discount to the price published by Metal Bulletin for European ammonium para-tungstate (APT).
Driver fatigue monitoring specialist Seeing Machines (LON:SEE) has deepened its relationship with construction equipment giant Caterpillar, moving beyond the mining equipment sector.
Caterpillar Safety Solutions (CSS) is to provide monitoring and analytical services to its global customers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, using Seeing Machines' DSS products.
On to the power sector, and Rame Energy (LON:RAME), which is on the brink of becoming a power producer at its Raki/Huajache wind project in Chile.
All five wind turbines are now in place at the site, the most advanced project in Rame's development pipeline, and power out is expected in the next few weeks.
AFC Energy (LON:AFC) said its first 101 fuel cell stack is operating in line with expectations after being shipped to Germany after initial trials in the UK.
The stack, housed within the new KORE system cartridge, confirms that AFC has the engineering fundamentals of the system right, the company said.
Sticking with the energy theme, KrisEnergy (SGX:SK3) has now become the operator of Block 105-110/4 in offshore Vietnam. After buying out partner Eni’s in December.
KrisEnergy has around 12 months remaining under the current exploration period, following an extension that was approved in January.
President Energy (LON:PPC) has received a certificate of good standing in relation to the Pirity concession from the Paraguay authorities.
The notice states that as operator the company has fulfilled all of its obligations and has complied with all filings and reporting obligations, and the annual work programme.
Victoria Oil & Gas’s (LON:VOG) subsidiary in Cameroon has completed pipeline and metering work for the supply of gas to two power stations in Douala ahead of schedule.
Twenty two generating units are now on site at the Bassa and Logbaba plants with the remainder scheduled to arrive next week. Both plants are on course to be commissioned by the end of the month.
The directors at Magnolia Petroleum (LON:MAGP) must have the number of a stockbroker on speed dial judging by a flurry of share purchases.
In total, directors Steven Snead, Ron Harwood, Gavin Burnell, Rita Whittington and Derec Norman bought just over 3mln in the US-focused oil producer at prices ranging from 0.625p to 0.64p.
On to the world of finance where Tungsten (LON:TUNG) said its banking arm is now taking deposits, which will provide additional financing capability to its early payment electronic invoice finance business.
Finally, low-cost African airline Fastjet (LON:FJET) saw year-on-year growth of 50% in passenger numbers in February and will boost capacity for the peak Easter and summer months.