Breedon Aggregates (LON:BREE) and Whitemountain, part of the Lagan Group, have jointly won a contract north of the border valued at up to £55mln.
The contract is to lay asphalt on the £745mln Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route/Balmedie-Tipperty (AWPR/B-T) project.
The joint venture will supply and lay more than 500,000 tonnes of asphalt material for the works, which are being constructed by the AWPR Construction Joint Venture on behalf of Aberdeen Roads Limited.
It was the biggest news from the small cap universe, which also saw AIM-listed First Property Group (LON:FPO) buy nine properties in Romania currently being leased to supermarket chain Lidl.
The firm, along with other investors, has acquired the portfolio of properties, which has a net income of €1.16mln, for €10.5mln, representing a yield of 11% per year.
In oil and gas news, a 15% boost to the grade to one of its uranium deposits should enhance the economics of Berkeley Energia’s (LON:BKY) Salamanca Project in central-western Spain, the company said.
Salamanca is already slated to be one of the lowest cost producers when it comes into production, and now the results from a new mineral resource estimate for the Retortillo area look to have provided a further boost.
They show that Retortillo is host to a measured and indicated 15.4mln tonnes of Triuranium octoxide (U3O8) at 422 parts per million (ppm).
Elsewhere, JKX Oil & Gas (LON:JKX) acknowledged a 47% drop in gas production taxes in Ukraine, and highlighted it has plans in place to restart drilling programmes.
The Ukraine government has passed legislation to reduce the gas tax to 29% from 55% with effect of January 1 2016, JKX told investors.
Meanwhile, Forte Energy (LON:FTE) made an offer to acquire the 49% of BOS GLOBAL Limited (BGL) that it doesn’t already own.
Similarly, Northcote Energy (LON:NCT) is mulling its potential participation in new projects in Mexico.
It has an agreement in place with AIM peer MX Oil (LON:MXO) giving it the option to take 20% of its partner’s interest in new projects.
In the mining space, record pellet production in the fourth quarter was not enough to prevent shares of Ferrexpo (LON:FXPO) from being hammered in the market.
In other news, Sunrise Resources (LON:SRES) has revealed that executive chairman Patrick Cheetham has increased his shareholdings in the company.
Cheetham purchased an additional 1mln shares at an average price of 0.207p.
Finally, John Chiplin, the senior non-executive director on Scancell's (LON:SCLP) board, is to take over as non-executive chairman from David Evans.
Evans has decided to reduce the number of non-executive chairman roles he occupies, and has stepped down with immediate effect.