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COMPANY SNAPSHOT: Barclays, San Leon Energy, Magnolia Petroleum, Frontera Resources, Top Level Domain Holdings, Anglo American, Condor Resources

10th Feb 2012, 7:54 am by Sergei Balashov COMPANY SNAPSHOT: Barclays, San Leon Energy, Magnolia Petroleum, Frontera Resources, Top Level Domain Holdings, Anglo American, Condor Resources

This morning, investors were focused on the banking sector after Barclays (LON:BARC) reported a three percent decline in profits to £5.9 billion, which undershot market forecasts of a profit of over £6 billion.

The decline in profits was blamed on the impact of market volatility on Barclays’ investment banking arm BarCap, which saw its full year profits plummet 32 percent.

“We are not satisfied with the return on equity we delivered in 2011 and are committed to delivering steady improvement moving forwards,” said chief executive of Barclays Bob Diamond.

“Our rock solid capital, liquidity and funding positions provide us with the flexibility and confidence to meet the economic and regulatory challenges ahead.”

Oil and gas companies also generated interest with San Leon Energy (LON:SLE) announcing that its shale gas well in Poland encountered continuous gas shows and Magnolia Petroleum (LON:MAGP) announcing the acquisition of further exploration acreage in the US.

San Leon has successfully completed its second shale gas exploration well in Poland's Baltic basin. The Talisman Energy operated Rogity-1 well, on the Braniewo S Concession in Poland, has been drilled to a depth of 2,788 meters, encountering continuous gas shows.

The strongest gas shows, along with indications of oil, were encountered in the Lower Silurian interval, which is estimated to be over 100 meters thick.

Oil shows were also encountered in Ordovician limestones and shales, and in Middle Cambrian sandstone.

Evaluation and interpretation of core and logs is expected to take 3-4 months.

Talisman will next move the rig to the Szczawno concession to drill the Szymkowo-1 well.

“We are excited by the successful drilling and significant data gathering at the Rogity-1 well,” said chairman of San Leon.

“Our initial results show the regional variability of the basin and have confirmed our model of a more liquids rich system on the eastern edge of the basin.”

Peer Magnolia Petroleum has bought a 100 percent interest in 800 acres in the oil producing Mississippi Lime formation in Oklahoma and minority interest in leases over a further 284 net acres.

The company plans to drill at least three vertical wells to test the Mississippi on this acreage in the near future.

The acreage, which totals 1,084 acres, was acquired at a total cost of US$230,000.

“Last year we participated in a well with Chesapeake that was completed in the Mississippi formation in which we recovered all of our costs in just three months,” said chief operational officer of Magnolia Rita Whittington.

“In addition, the cost of drilling in the Mississippi is considerably less than that of the Bakken, and so offers higher margins and a much reduced payback time.”

Fellow oil and gas firm Frontera Resources (LON:FRR), which has assets in the Republic of Georgia, has drawn down £800,000 on its Standby Equity Distribution Agreement (SEDA) with YA Global Master.

The company said it will use the funds to advance its work programmes.

Top Level Domain Holdings (LON:TLHD) also provided a funding update today, announcing that it has placed 109.5 million shares at a price of 8.25 pence per share to raise £9.03 million before expenses.

The proceeds will enable the company to fund the application slots for new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) on behalf of itself and clients of Minds + Machines.

Top Level Domains expects to submit multiple batches for application slots during the application window, having already submitted for its first twenty application slots.

The placing proceeds will take the debtless company’s cash balance to US$25 million.

In the mining sector, Anglo American (LON:AAL) relayed a full year results statement from diamond miner De Beers, which posted earnings of US$968 million. This means that Anglo will report earnings of US$443 million for 2011 from its investment in De Beers.

Moving to small caps, Condor Resources (LON:CNR) unveiled the results of further trenching and the first exploratory drilling on the Central Breccia at its wholly owned La India project in Nicaragua.

Highlights of today’s report included intersections of 41.9 metres grading 1.59 grammes per tonne (g/t) gold and 49 metres at 1.26 g/t gold from two trenches on the Central breccia, demonstrating continuity of high grade mineralisation at surface.

Two exploratory drill holes have confirmed a large hydrothermal system with elevated background gold values extending to a depth of over 150 metres.

“The location of the Central Breccia could be significant as it is at the structural centre and a possible ‘feeder zone’ for La India epithermal gold system on an axis of over 3 kilometres, where the veins in south dip to the north and the veins in the north dip to the south,” said chief executive of Condor Mark Child.

Elsewhere in the markets, Silence Therapeutics (LON:SLN) has promoted Tony Sedgwick from chief business officer to chief executive officer with immediate effect to replace Thomas Christély, who has resigned for personal reasons.

Prior to joining Silence in September, Sedgwick served as chief executive of Novacta and chairman of the Norwegian biotech company Plastid AS.

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