Two copper minnows received good news today.
Firstly, SolGold (LON:SOLG) shares advanced as it reported strong visual signs of copper in the 11th hole drilled at Cascabel in Ecuador.
The copper occurred between 996m and the current hole depth of 1,128m, extending the metal strike hit so far at the Alpala target at the prospect to over 375m in length and 300m thick.
Meanwhile, Mongolia-focused Kincora Copper (CVE:KCC) received a boost as the government reached agreement with mining giant Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) over expansion at the huge, world class Oyu Tolgoi project.
It may mean financing could now start to flow on other projects, which will be welcome news to Kincora.
To gold and Caledonia Mining’s (LON:CMCL) expansion plans have been buoyed by an increase and upgrade in the gold resource at its 49%-owned Blanket Mine in Zimbabwe.
Armadale Capital (LON:ACP) has appointed Dr Andrew Tunks as a non-executive director to help develop the Mpokoto gold project.
Gemstone specialist Richland Resources (LON:RLD) told investors it has started commercial production of sapphires from its Capricorn mine in Queensland.
Canada-focused Landore Resources (LON:LND) was upbeat on the outlook for nickel prices as it posted its 2014 final results.
The firm is developing its flagship Junior Lake project in Ontario, which is prospective for, among others, nickel, copper, PGE's and gold.
Finally in mining, Ormonde Mining (LON:ORM) shareholders have given their seal of approval to Oaktree Capital’s proposed project financing for the Barruecopardo tungsten project in Salamanca, Spain.
To oil - and Northern Petroleum (LON:NOP) is nearing a restart of production in Canada where it expects to see start-up rates between 75 and 100 barrel of oil per day.
MX Oil (LON:MXO) is promising an exciting year ahead as it bids to build an oil business in Mexico's re-opening energy sector.
Elsewhere, Chariot Oil & Gas (LON:CHAR) told investors it has terminated a Brazilian partnership with Azimuth after an agreement could not be met.
To the clouds and CloudTag (LON:CTAG), the wearable technology specialist, is beefing up its research and development capability with the creation of a research and performance unit.
Meanwhile, cloud-based e-commerce marketplace specialist cloudBuy (LON:CBUY) has landed an US$850,000 contract with the Ministry of Economy of a state in the Middle East.
In other news, Proximity marketing specialist Proxama (LON:PROX) announced its second contract win in as many days, this time with outdoor advertising firm Exterion Media.
To theme parks and queuing and ticketing specialist accesso technology (LON:ACSO) told shareholders the first four months of this year had seen a strong start.
Cryptosoft, one of four companies in investment firm Tern’s (LON:TERN) portfolio, has appointed IT veteran Darron Antill as chief executive.
Stride Gaming (LON:STR), founded Eitan Boyd and Darren Sims, with the support of two previous financial backers, Tal Harpaz and Sean Rose, joined AIM this morning with a market capitalisation of £66mln.
Rosslyn Analytics, a part of Rosslyn Data Technologies (LON:RDT) today announced that it is one of the first to offer companies Analytics-as-a-Service on Azure.
The firm has developed a dynamic big data cloud analytics platform, powered by Azure, which provides self-service management of every stage of the data journey, from source to analytics.
Business and IT users are able to directly interact with, change and analyse data using a combination of tools and visualisation technologies.