Away from Brexit and marmite, there was plenty of news to catch the eye of the small and larger cap investor - notably in oil and gas and mining.
Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) could be sitting on a super-giant gas field in Morocco, according to chief executive James Parsons.
In a presentation given to private investors in Edinburgh last week, which was filmed and is hosted on the company’s website, Parsons said the Tendrara discovery could amount to “tens of tcf” (trillion cubic feet).
Asked to be more specific, he said it might be of the order of ENI’s Zohr gas field, offshore Egypt, which weighs in at 30tcf.
The confidence of Sound’s management has been bolstered by the results from the company’s last well on Tendrara, TE-6, which flowed at a significantly higher rate than expected.
Not a small player, but North Sea oilfield developer EnQuest Plc (LON:ENQ) has launched a £82mln equity funding to support the completion of work at the Kraken field.
Kraken is due to come online in the first half of 2017, though last month a possible deal to farm-out a portion of the project (and a share of the project’s costs) fell through.
EnQuest, which owes in the order of US$1.7bn, told investors it will not use any of the placing funds to repay debt.
Meanwhile, Mosman Oil and Gas Limited (LON:MSMN) told investors that exploration work continues albeit within expenditure constraints.
In New Zealand, the company has now had a LIDAR survey flown over the Murchison permit; the data has been received and interpretation is now underway.
Separate surveys in Australia are scheduled to take place in the coming months.
To the FTSE 250 and Morgan Stanley tips Tullow Oil plc (LON:TLW) shares to break out, driven by production growth and better oil prices.
Analyst Martijn Rats says the Africa focused oil producer is at an inflection point.
He notes that the company, which has rallied just over 60% in the year to date, is highly geared to oil prices and the improving sentiment around the oil market.
Morgan Stanley’s Rats highlights that Tullow is now close to turning cash flow positive and debt levels are falling.
In mining, strong demand for paint pigment meant strong sales prices of ilmenite and rutile for minerals sands firm Base Resources Ltd in its September quarter, it revealed.
Prices for its ilmenite increased by around 50% between May and September and it has now contracted all ilmenite production to November and secured further step price increases for these forward sales.
On rutile, higher than expected offtake by major consumers during 2016 has rebalanced supply and demand and Base expects prices to begin moving upwards late in the December quarter or early in the March quarter 2017.
Meanwhile, shares in West Africa focused Aureus Mining Inc (LON:AUE, TSX:AUE) dipped as it told investors a waiver to its debt repayments to its lenders had been further extended to December 14 this year.