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COMPANY SNAPSHOT: Matra Petroleum, Oilex, President Petroleum, Minera IRL, SABMiller, ENRC

Published: 03:01 17 Aug 2011 EDT

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It has been a somewhat quiet morning in the FTSE 350 so all eyes were on small cap companies with oil and gas firms generating the most interest after several closely followed explorers updated investors on their operations.

Among them was AIM quoted Russian operating firm Matra Petroleum (LON:MTA).

The company reported that well-12 at its Sokolovskoe oil field has suffered from a build-up of wax in the tubing and an increase in water cut to 70 percent and has ceased to flow. As a result, the well has now been shut in.

“The continuing problems at well-12 are frustrating. We are, however, continuing efforts to obtain further information from the well and to see if we can continue production,” said managing director Peter Hind.

Today’s news from sector peer President Petroleum (LON:PPC) was better.

President’s well 50 at East White Lake in Louisiana has now been successfully recompleted. PPC said the initial results are considered “very good” with the well flowing at a rate of 100 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).

Oilex (LON:OEX) has also provided an operational update today. The company said its Cambay-76H "proof of concept" horizontal well in India is being prepared for well clean-up flow and production testing.

After the clean-up operations are complete, the well will be flow tested.

Notable updates in the FTSE 100 included beverage group SABMiller’s (LON:SAB) decision to put its A$4.90 per share takeover offer for brewery Foster's Group directly to its shareholders after Foster’s rejected SABMiller’s approach in June.

“SABMiller believes that the proposal put to the Foster's Board is attractive and should be put to Foster's shareholders.  As there has been no willingness to engage in relation to SABMiller's proposal on the part of the Foster's Board, SABMiller has decided to make an offer to Foster's shareholders directly,” the group said in today’s statement.

In the mining sector, FTSE 100 constituent Eurasian Natural Resources (LON:ENRC) said its revenues in the first half of 2011 jumped 32 percent to US$4.01 billion, while earnings per share surged 30 percent to 91 US cents.

However, the Kazakhstan operating miner said that revenues momentum is likely to slow in the second half of the year, expecting improvement in commodity markets late this year or in early 2012.

Staying with miners, small cap gold and silver explorer Minera IRL (LON:MIRL) announced a significant resource upgrade at its Don Nicolas gold project in Argentina.

Measured and indicated resource in the combined high and low grade category now stands at 381,000 ounces gold, an 89 percent increase from the previous resource estimate prepared by Hidefield Gold in 2009.

An additional 149,000 ounces is contained in the inferred resource category.

Executive chairman of Minera IRL Courtney Chamberlain said he was “extremely pleased” with the results of the resource estimate.

“This forms the resource base for the Don Nicolas Feasibility Study which we expect to complete before the end of the year,” said Chamberlain.

Elsewhere in the markets, TyraTech (LON:TYR) announced that its non-executive director James Hills has acquired 50,000 shares in the company at a price of 31 pence per share, giving him a 0.001 percent stake in Tyra.

The purchase price represents a premium to TyraTech’s yesterday’s closing price of 30 pence.

Australian Strategic Materials signs US$600 million LoI

Rowena Smith, CEO and managing director of Australian Strategic Materials Ltd (ASX:ASM, OTC:ASMMF), joins Jonathan Jackson in the Proactive studio to discuss the company’ s Dubbo Project, in Central West New South Wales. This project aims to extract and process critical minerals and rare earth...

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