Oilers and miners were among stocks in the news on UK Budget day.
North Sea junior Independent Oil & Gas (LON:IOG) shares advanced over 13% on Wednesday after it revealed a number of key details about a proposed funding deal.
Negotiations are ongoing for the major financing, it said, which would enable several oil field developments, and the company is now arranging a shareholder meeting to expand management authorities so that a deal can proceed quickly once final agreements are made.
IOG said in a statement it would be “extremely advantageous” to have shareholder authorities in place so it can conclude negotiations and receive funds by July 31.
Today is a great day for Eurasia Mining (LON:EUA) and its shareholders, Christian Schaffalitzky, managing dircetor exclaimed today.
The company confirmed that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has approved an application for a mining licence for its West Kytlim project.
RosNedra, the Russian licencing agency, informed the company that a formal licence will now be registered in late August or early September.
Meanwhile, Elephant Oil is to reciprocate Red Rock Resources’ (LON:RRR) recent investment.
The Benin oil explorer is taking £200,000 worth of shares in a £327,500 placing by Red Rock at 0.0475p. The funding will partly help pay for Red Rock’s stake in Elephant.
In June, Red Rock announced it had agreed an option to invest nearly £700,000 in the privately-owned Elephant, which has a production sharing contract for 4,500 sq km onshore Benin.
US Oil & Gas (USOP), in a statement after yesterday’s close, told investors that enabling its shares to trade will be a priority for the company, as it pointed to a statement from the GXG Market which confirmed it would be relinquishing its Danish Market Operator licenses.
Elsewhere, Summit Therapeutics (LON:SUMM, NASDAQ: SMMT) has received US fast track designation for its antibiotic to treat bacterial infection c.difficile. The compound, SMT19969, is currently going through a Phase 2 proof of concept trial in patients in North America.
"Fast Track designation recognises the serious healthcare threat posed by C. difficile due to a high rate of disease recurrence, the key clinical issue in treating CDI,” said Glyn Parsons, Summit’s chief executive.
Medtech company ANGLE (LON:AGL) has appointed Daniel Costin Danila, MD, as a scientific advisor to the company with immediate effect.
Dr Danila, an assistant attending physician at Memorial Hospital Cancer Center in New York, is a leader in the development and adoption of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) as predictive biomarkers to help clinicians select appropriate treatments.
The main focus of his research has been on prostate cancer, where he has been exploring a hypothesis that molecular profiling of CTCs can be used to assess biological determinants of the growth of prostate cancer tumours.
This area of research is right up ANGLE's street, as its Parsortix system harvests CTCs to provide an early warning of the onset of cancer.
In mining, Rare Earth Minerals (LON: REM) said it intends to use a pre-feasibility study at its Sonora lithium joint venture in Mexico as the basis for a 50,000 tonne per year plant.
David Lenigas, chairman, said: “The PFS program will initially be comprised of infill drilling, detailed metallurgical design work, process engineering and mine design.”
The schedule is to complete the PFS by the end of first quarter of next year, he added.
Copper explorer Metminco (LON:MNC) is on track to complete a mining study on its Los Calatos project in Peru this month.
The study will examine the feasibility of an operation to produce approximately 50,000 tpa of copper metal in concentrate.
So far, the study has confirmed that the preferred mining methods will likely be a combination of open pit and underground mining at significantly higher copper cut-off grades than used previously.
Red Rock Resources (LON:RRR) said it had raised a further £ £51,250 through placing around 107.8mln new shares at 0.0475p a share.
Chairman Andrew Bell and directors Michael C. Nott and Sam Quinn took part in the placing.