Noricum Gold (LON:NMG) announced a 'game-changing' acquisition of a 50% stake in a project in The Republic of Georgia, which contains large copper and gold resources.
The £2.61mln all share purchase of the stake in the 861 sq km Bolnisi project, in which Noricum also takes operational control, provides excellent potential for production, the firm said.
Sector peer ,Toronto-listed Royal Road Minerals (CVE:RYR), formerly Tigris Resources, said the first three holes of its programme at the Gömeç gold project in Turkey have hit encouraging results.
They include 118 metres at 1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, including 22 metres at 3.9 grams per tonne gold and 21 g/t silver, and highlight bulk tonnage potential, it said.
Xtract Resources' (LON:XTR) Chepica gold and copper project continues to show its potential - with the discovery of a new high grade reef system.
The new find in Chile could potentially double the previous company estimates of contained gold in the area and could also increase the life of mine, the firm said.
Elsewhere in Latin America, Mariana Resources’ (LON:MARL) Chilean subsidiary has received the first US$450,000 out of a total of US$1.65mln from Asset Chile Exploración to fund exploration at two targets in the north of the country.
Moving on to the energy sector, Tower Resources (LON:TRP) has raised £5.2mln in a share placing to fund its new project offshore Cameroon, in the Niger Delta.
M&G Investments is a cornerstone participant in the placing, subscribing for £2.3mln of new shares and acquiring 18% of the group’s enlarged share capital.
The placing sees a total of 2.9bn new shares issued at a price of 0.19p, which was Tuesday’s closing price on AIM.
Investors in Falcon Oil & Gas (LON:FOG) can celebrate tentatively as drilling has now began at the hotly anticipated Australian shale venture.
The Kalala S-1 well is the first of three wells of this initial programme.
Falcon’s 30% share of the drilling costs will be paid by partners Origin Resources and Sasol (each owning 35%) following a farm-out deal agreed in 2014.
Metal Tiger (LON:MTR) has confirmed it can now draw a line beneath the New World Oil & Gas (LON:NEW) settlement fiasco.
The natural resources investment group in May sold New World shares worth £169,891, realising a return on its initial investment, but settlement problems in the AIM-quoted oil junior’s securities meant Metal Tiger had only received about £17,200.
Oilex (LON:OEX) has raised the first A$1.8mln of a planned A$30mln funding for its exploration programme in India.
Shares were issued at A$0.041 and will help pay for two horizontal multi-stage fracture stimulated production wells and five work-overs of legacy wells at the Cambay Field.
A firm that tangentially serves the energy sector is Kalibrate Technologies’ (LON:KLBT), which said growing deregulation of petrol prices around the world kept sales on track over the past twelve months.
Annualised recurring revenues rose to US$21mln in the year to June compared to US$19.6m a year ago, which was in line with its expectations.
Orders increased by 15% year-on-year to US$41.4mln, the petrol station software company revealed.
Elsewhere in the technology field, recurring sales of StatPro's (LON:SOG) Cloud-based product Revolution jumped by almost two-thirds in its latest half-year.
In total, the fund software specialist’s annualised recurring revenue rose 4% to £28.6mln (£27.5mln) in the period to end June.
Cryptosoft, one of technology investor Tern’s (LON:TERN) portfolio of companies, has launched a new product to tap into the fast growing ‘Internet of things’
Cryptosoft specialises in online security and data analysis and the new product, V3.0, includes enhanced encryption for ‘Internet of things’ (IoT) and ‘machine to machine’ (M2M) devices.
Mobile TV firm Motive (LON:MTV) said it had completed the integration of Google Cast into its US TabletTV apps.
The new app updates are available for free today and mean users can "cast" what they are viewing on their tablets directly to the home TV screen.
Chief financial officer John Kennedy will fill in as chief executive officer (CEO) at Proxama (LON:PROX) until the company makes a permanent appointment.
Current CEO Neil Garner announced his intention to step down from the role in May, and although he will remain on the board, leading the strategic development of new technologies, products and partnerships, he is now handing on CEO duties to Kennedy.
In other board room news, Dr Thomas File, a much published expert in infectious diseases, has joined Motif Bio's (LON:MTFB) scientific advisory board.
Finally, South American power group Rurelec (LON:RUR) saw its shares whacked as it said a US$12 million bridging loan had been suspended pending clarification on the security and repayment of the facility, if taken.
Today, Rurelec said there had been no draw-down on the bridging loan pending re-instatement and "in the event that the facility is not re-instated, the company has a number of alternative sources of finance on which a further announcement will be made in due course".