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COMPANY SNAPSHOT: Aminex, Max Petroleum, Magnolia Petroleum, Solo Oil, Dragon Oil, ANGLE, Gemfields, Orogen Gold, Aureus Mining

Last updated: 18:01 27 Feb 2012 AEDT, First published: 19:01 27 Feb 2012 AEDT

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Oil and gas firms Aminex (LON:AEX), Max Petroleum (LON:MXP) and Magnolia Petroleum (LON:MAGP) all had positive news to report to investors this morning including a gas discovery at the Ntorya-1 well in Tanzania announced by Aminex.

The group, which operates the project and its partner Solo Oil (LON:SOLO) told the markets that the Ntorya-1 well has made a gas discovery in the Ruvuma Basin onshore Tanzania.

Evaluation of electric logs from the well have confirmed the presence of reservoired gas, showing a gross sand interval of 25 metres with a three metre net gas bearing pay zone said Aminex.

The presence of gas bearing reservoir sandstones in the Ntorya-1 well confirms the potential for additional prospectivity in the thick Mesozoic sandstones that were encountered in the Likonde-1 well, said Solo Oil.

The well will now be deepened and suspended for flow testing once the company mobilises the necessary equipment to the site.

“There is immense potential to pursue additional opportunities within the Ruvuma PSA and the probable construction of gas infrastructure at the coast, just 25 kilometres away, makes commercial development very likely,” said chief executive of Solo Oil Neil Ritson.

In the meantime, Magnolia announced a significant increase in its attributable production and Max said its SAGW-3 well in the Sagiz West field in Kazakhstan have indicated 15 metres of net oil pay with very good reservoir quality.

Max will run production casing in the well, which will be completed and placed on test production after obtaining the requisite governmental approvals.

The ZJ-20 drilling rig will next move on to drill the ASK-J1 development well in the Asanketken field.

“We are excited to see the successful result in the SAGW-3 appraisal well which has drilled as expected and now confirms the discovery made by the initial well in the field and we look forward to results of NUR-1 in the next few months,” said president and chief financial officer Michael Young.

Back to Magnolia, the US operating group announced a significant increase in daily production from three wells targeting the Bakken / Three Forks Sanish formations in North Dakota one of which, at 2,303 barrels of oil per day (bopd), is a record for the company.

Magnolia participated with a 0.5977 percent working interest and 0.4482 percent net revenue interest in the drilling of each well with Kodiak Exploration.

At current levels, the three wells have increased net daily production attributable to Magnolia by 18 bopd, taking Magnolia’s total attributable production to 38 bopd.

As with all producing wells, production rates are expected to decline over the life of the wells and the aggregate actual production figure may be slightly less than the estimated figure of 38 bopd, the company said.

“The record production rate is highly encouraging for the three additional Three Forks Sanish and three Bakken wells that are to be drilled within the same 1,280 acre spacing unit as Skunk Creek,” said chief operational officer of Magnolia Rita Whittington.

According to US government estimates, Three Forks Sanish could hold recoverable oil reserves of up to two billion barrels.

Likewise, the news from Providence Resources (LON:PVR) and Lansdowne Oil & Gas (LON:LOGP) was positive with the companies announcing the completion of the drilling of the 48/24-10z Barryroe appraisal well offshore Ireland, which will now be flow tested.

Indications of hydrocarbons were seen whilst drilling, and the subsequent results from wire-line logging have confirmed the presence of 41 feet of net pay with no indication of a hydrocarbon water contact. Pressure data over this interval have revealed the presence of both oil and gas bearing zones.

Sticking with oil and gas, Dragon Oil (LON:DGO) has successfully completed and tested the Dzheitune 28/166 development well. The well tested for initial production at 1,975 barrels of oil per day.

Dragon is currently completing the Dzheitune (Lam) C/167 well with initial test results expected in two weeks.

Finally, Red Emperor Resources (LON:RMP) this morning announced a placing to raise £6.925 million at a price of 18 pence per share to progress its exploration drilling activities in Puntland and Georgia, business development opportunities and working capital.

Away from oil and gas, technology investor ANGLE (LON:AGL) said its 90 percent owned portfolio company Parsortix has signed a two year research agreement with the University of Manchester’s cancer research institute, which specialised in circulating tumour cells (CTCs).

The main focus areas for the collaborative work include cancer patient blood studies to provide further independent confirmation of the performance of the Parsortix device and to optimise its design.

The parties will also work on the development of research and clinical applications of the Parsortix device utilising cancer bio-markers.

“The Paterson Institute has world-leading knowledge of CTCs and first hand experience of working with existing and developing CTC capture techniques,” said chief executive of ANGLE Andrew Newland.

“We believe that this research partnership will significantly help us to optimise our cancer diagnostic product and bring it to market as quickly as possible.”

Other updates that generated interest this morning came from gold miners Aureus Mining (LON:AUE) and Orogen Gold (LON:ORE).

Aureus was encouraged by the latest drilling and trenching results from exploration programmes at the Leopard Rock gold target on the Archaen Gold exploration Licence in Liberia.

The results included intercepts of 17.6 grammes per tonne (g/t) gold over four metres, 9.4 g/t gold over six metres and 9.5 g/t gold over three metres.

Production from the New Liberty project is expected to start in the final quarter of 2013.

“The drilling and trenching results from Leopard Rock are very encouraging and demonstrate the highly prospective nature of our licence area in Liberia,” said chief executive of Aureus David Reading.

Meanwhile, peer Orogen reported that it has gained access to all the remaining underground levels at the two historic gold mines located on the Deli Jovan project area in Serbia. A total of more than two kilometres of shafts and adits have been cleared and made safe.

Underground mapping has revealed that gold-bearing quartz veins at Gindusa were much more extensively mined than at Rusman.

However, the company also said that extreme winter weather conditions in Serbia towards the end of January have led to the declaration of a state of emergency in the country. Access to the Gindusa and Rusman mine sites was temporarily cut-off and has only recently been re-established.

“We are greatly encouraged by the style and vertical continuity of the mineralised zones seen at both levels in the Gindusa mine,” said chief executive of Orogen Ed Slowey.

“We will complete the underground mapping and sampling programme once the snows have melted and we can regain access.”

Elsewhere in the sector, Gemfields (LON:GEM) has completed the acquisition of a controlling interest in a ruby deposit in the Montepuez district of the Cabo Delgado province in Mozambique.

The conditions of the agreement have now been satisfied and the license, which are valied for 25 years, were formally issued by the Mozambican government on February 23.

These licenses were granted to Montepuez Ruby Mining, in which Gemfields has a 75 percent stake.

The project is believed to be potentially one of the largest ruby concessions in private hands in the world.

Moving to telecoms, coloured gemstone group Synchronica (LON:SYNC) has launched Unity, a white labelled platform that allows users to see and send all types of messages from a single view.

Unity clients for Android, Apple iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry Smartphone platforms and for MediaTek and Spreadtrum platforms for low/ultra-low-cost feature phones enable unified messaging.

“With Unity, Synchronica is redefining the future of mobile messaging with a compelling platform that enables users to access and send any message - text, email, IM, social - from a single place,” said chief technology officer of Synchronica Kim Hartlev.

In IT, Avia Health Informatics (LON:AVIA) has signed a contract for the sale of PathFinderRF to South East Staffs CCG, enabling it to support referrals and clinical communication in South Staffordshire.

The South East Staffs CCG order is the fifth PathFinderRF order Plain has received from Clinical Commissioning Groups over the last eight weeks.

PathFinderRF is an online referral decision support and clinical communication system, which allows primary care organizations to manage referral decision making and the communication of clinical information from general practice to specialist and community services.

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