Ophir Energy (LON:OPHR) stole the limelight this morning as it announced its fifth consecutive gas discovery offshore Tanzania, revealing that the Mzia-1 well in Block 1 intersected a 178 metre gas bearing column and 55 metres of net pay.
Mean in place resource is estimated at 3.5 trillion cubic feet with significant potential upside.
Further technical work will determine the recoverable resource of this substantial, commercial gas discovery, the company said.
“Mzia-1 was the first definitive test of the Upper Cretaceous in Tanzania, and Ophir's highest risk East African well to date,” said chief executive of Ophir,” said chief executive of Ophir Nick Cooper.
“The success at Mzia-1 is a major step towards a Tanzanian LNG hub development in Block 1. We will now test the equivalent deeper play in the Rufiji Delta in Block 3 with the Papa-1 well.”
Tethys Petroleum (LON:TPL) also had positive news to report this morning.
The group told investors that it has received an updated oil resource report for its Kazkahstan assets, which estimates its gross unrisked recoverable prospective oil resources at 1.17 billion barrels of oil.
In addition to the oil resources, there are unrisked gas prospective resources of 231 billion cubic feet and separate non-associated prospective gas resources of 374 bcf.
The next appraisal/exploration well, AKD07, is expected to spud mid-year 2012 to test the Dyna exploration prospect, which has recoverable prospective resources of 128 million barrels.
Sticking with oil and gas, Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) has contracted a drill ship to begin work on further exploration of the Zaedyus discovery in French Guiana next month following the drill success late last year.
The plan initially is to appraise the Zaedyus-1 well and explore for deeper objectives, to be followed by an exploration wildcat well.
Small caps Northern Petroleum (LON:NOP) and Wessex Exploration (LON:WSX) have a combined 2.5 percent stake in the project.
Peer Aminex (LON:AEX) released an interim management statement, covering the year to date, in which it highlighted the Ntorya-1 gas discovery in prolific Ruvuma Basin, which is ready for flow testing.
Geological and seismic studies are expected to provide initial resource estimates for Ruvuma and updated resource estimates for the Nyuni area.
The company also noted that gas exploration infrastructure planned by the Tanzanian government will serve all three of its properties, providing existing and future discoveries a clear route to monetization.
“These developments highlight the potential of Aminex's East African portfolio to deliver significant value as the exploration programme progresses,” the company said in the statement.
“With a new African gas discovery, divestiture of non-African assets and a robust investment programme targeted on our Tanzanian properties, it has been an exciting beginning to 2012 and the rest of the year is expected to be similarly active.”
In the mining sector, Connemara Mining (LON:CON) said it has completed the airborne survey targeting gold deposits over the block of five licences in Ireland and Ferrex (LON:FRX) reported positive results from an initial scoping study on its Malelane iron ore project.
The work is part of an ongoing joint venture between Connemara Mining and Hendrick Resources of Canada whereby Hendrick will earn 75 percent interest in the licences by spending €1 million.
“Dale Hendrick, an acknowledged expert in evaluating airborne survey results has done some work on the raw data from the survey,” said chairman of Connemara John Teeling.
“He believes that he has identified previously unknown 'potential' targets for gold deposits. These are targets that could not be identified from conventional ground based exploration.”
Final results are due within six weeks following which the next stage of exploration will be decided, said Connemara.
The study for Ferrex’s malelane project, which focused on the development of three million tonnes (3 Mt) per annum based on an inferred resource of 154 Mt), estimated the project’s net present value (NPV) at US$513 million with operating costs of around US$59/t FOB.
Capex was estimated at US$297 million with a significant reduction expected in revised study.
“The robust economic results from the scoping study are a result of the low capital cost of constructing a three million tonne per annum operation at Malelane with a 16.6 year mine life, placing it in the lowest quartile for capital intensity of new iron ore projects globally,” said managing director of Ferrex Dave Reeves.
Fellow mining group Horizonte Minerals (LON:HZM, TSE:HZM) said it expects to announce the results of the preliminary economic assessment for its Araguaia nickel project in Brazil at the end of the current second quarter.
The prefeasibility study will follow, and is expected to be released in the first half of 2013.
The group today reported results for the first quarter to end-Mach 2012, a period which saw, among other milestones, a 30 per cent upgrade to the flagship project’s NI 43-101 resource to more than 100 million tonnes and metallurgical tests revealing good recoveries from Araguaia ore.
In the meantime, Continental Coal (LON:COOL) said the twin declines at the Penumbra coal mine were advanced 58 metres in April to a combined total length of 135 metres and the conveyor road has advanced down 79 metres and the travelling road down 56 metres.
During the month minor problems with the soft floors impacted decline advance rates, however measures have been put in place to address this, said Continental.
Meanwhile, the Vlakvarkfontein coal mine achieved above budget run of mine (ROM) coal production of 112,281 tonnes in April, up six percent from March, while ROM coal production at the Ferreira coal mine rose four percent to 55,263 tonnes.
Elsewhere in the sector, Minera IRL (LON:MIRL) has started the permitting process for the Don Nicolas project in the Santa Cruz province of Argentina following the completion of an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
Permitting is expected to take around six months.
“We continue to receive outstanding support from the authorities in Santa Cruz and are confident that the permitting process will proceed expeditiously,” said executive chairman of Minera Courtney Chamberlain.
“The future Don Nicolas Mine promises to be an attractive investment with considerable upside potential in a number of areas.
“We remain confident that we will have our first gold pour from Don Nicolas in late 2013.”
Namakwa Diamonds (LON:NAD) also released an update this morning, reporting that it has closed its first sale of Kao diamonds in Antwerp with 16,388 carats sold at an average price of US$395 per carat.
The largest diamond sold was 38cts at US$6,668/ct, with an 11ct diamond selling for US$15,020/ct and four diamonds with sizes varying between 6 and 14 carats selling for an average of US$7,100/ct.
Revenues reached US$6.47 million with achieved prices topping estimates by 17 percent, resulting in an additional income of US$1 million.
Sales will continue through Fusion Alternatives for at least the next six months.
“The significant improvement in achieved price reflects both the increased parcel size on comparative diamond sales in Johannesburg, as production ramps-up at the Kao Mine, and the international exposure provided by our tender partner, Fusion Alternatives,” said chief executive of Namakwa Richard Collocott.
“We look forward to regular monthly sales in Antwerp for the foreseeable future.”
In biotech, Angel Biotechnology (LON:ABH) has signed a new contract with ReNeuron (LON:RENE) to provide GMP cell manufacturing services to support the final part of the PISCES Phase 1 clinical trial of its ReN001 stem cell therapy for stroke.
“We are pleased to continue our manufacturing partnership with Angel to serve the needs of the ongoing PISCES stroke clinical trial, and we look forward to seeing the higher dose cohorts in the study treated with our ReN001 stem cell therapy over the coming months,” said chief executive of ReNeuron Michael Hunt.
In other news, technology investor Angle (LON:AGL) said its 31 percent owned portfolio group Geomerics, which specialises in computer games middleware, has successfully completed the third and final milestone in its corporate partnership with a major technology company and has received a milestone payment.
The deal included investment in Geomerics of up to £2.3 million, of which £1 million was subject to certain milestones.
The total investment of £2.3 million has now been received.
Finally, Westminster Group (LON:WSG) has opened the new Longmoor Training Academy, which it said was in response to the increasing demand for Longmoor close protection (CP) courses.
“The market in personal protection has grown significantly with the much publicised increase in kidnap, hostage taking, ransom demand and targeted theft of wealthy and high profile individuals,” said chief executive of Westminster Peter Fowler.