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Monday’s most followed: Gulf Keystone Petroleum, Sareum Holdings, Sirius Minerals, Trap Oil, Ariana Resources, Vatukoula Gold Mines

Last updated: 10:54 18 Feb 2013 GMT, First published: 11:54 18 Feb 2013 GMT

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Investors tapped into Kurdistan-focused oil company Gulf Keystone Petroleum (LON:GKP) at the start of the week.

Shares lifted 4% when the company updated shareholders on its legal battle with Excalibur Ventures after the English Commercial Court made some rulings in the case at the end of last week.

On Friday, the English Commercial Court in London ordered Excalibur to make a payment of £4.7mln into court within 21 days as additional security for the costs of Gulf Keystone and two of its subsidiaries of defending the legal action commenced by Excalibur in December 2010.

The court also ordered Excalibur to pay £3.3mln into court within 21 days as additional security for the costs of Texas Keystone Inc.

In addition, Excalibur was ordered to pay costs of the hearing to Gulf Keystone, its subsidiaries plus Texas Keystone Inc. Excalibur is required to make interim payments on account of £50,000 to Gulf Keystone and its subsidiaries, and £40,000 to Texas Keystone Inc. within 14 days.

Gulf Keystone continues vigorously to dispute and contest the allegations and claims asserted by Excalibur.

Investors cheered the news, sending shares up 4% to 207p each.

AIM-listed Sareum Holdings (LON:SAR) also caught the eye with its half-year report and research update. Shares in the specialist cancer drug discovery company dropped 11% after it reported another loss in its latest six-month trading period.

CEO Dr Tim Mitchell however remains upbeat about the company’s research activities and said it is reviewing the options for the future development of the Chk1 programme.

The options, which are either to continue licence talks with third parties or to progress it further before licencing at a later stage, both have benefits, according to Atif Latif at Guardian stockbrokers.

“Our ongoing progress in our research programmes is very encouraging and we continue to discuss the commercialisation of these programmes with a number of interested parties,” said CEO Mitchell.

“We are also now in a strong position to develop our programmes to later stages, should we so choose, which should mean a greater share of the end rewards and we will continue to consider this aspect alongside our various discussions with potential partners.”

Sirius Minerals (LON:SXX) fared better at the start of the week, up 7% after it penned an agreement with a Swiss specialist that will market around a third of the fertiliser produced by the group’s York Potash Project in Yorkshire.

KEYTRADE will sell around 1.75mln tonnes of polyhalite a year into regions such as Central and South America (although this excludes Brazil), South East Asia and specific countries in Europe and Africa.

The York project is currently under development, but is earmarked to come online in late 2016 with initial production slated to be around 5mln tonnes a year.

Trap Oil (LON:TRAP) snagged some new investors today after it said operations have begun at the Scotney exploration prospect in the North Sea.

According to Trap, the best estimate for the gross prospective resources for the entire prospect stands at around 57mln barrels of oil equivalent, with around 7.1mln barrels equivalent net to the company. Shares rose around 1% today.

Ariana Resources (LON:AAU) and Vatukoula Gold Mines (LON:VGM) both shone on Monday.

The former was up 4% when it revealed it identified more gold and base metals at its Ardala joint venture in north-east Turkey, while Vatukoula shot up 13% after unveiling additional high grade drilling results from its gold mine in Fiji.

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