Aside from the Barclays plc (LON:BARC) numbers, there was plenty of other stories to whet investors' appetite today, including from the oil and gas sector.
Today, it emerged that Hurricane Energy Plc’s (LON:HUR) attentions will now turn to the Lincoln exploration well as it confirmed the completion of testing for the new horizontal well on the Lancaster field.
Testing operations have now ended, and the company added some detail to the headline flow results announced last week.
The Lancaster 205 21a-7Z well, a horizontal sidetrack, naturally flowed at a rate of 6,520 barrels of oil per day and with the use of an electrical submersible pump (ESP) a sustainable flow rate of at least 14,500 bopd is possible – that was the equipment constrained measure taken in testing.
Sticking to the sector, the conventional oil potential at Project Icewine may be the ‘sleeper’ in the 88 Energy Ltd (LON:88E, ASX:88E) portfolio, but it’s the kind of noisy sleeper that has become very hard to ignore.
Icewine’s HRZ shale, a now-proven system on Alaska's North Slope estimated in excess of 2.5bn barrels, is obviously priority number one.
And in the coming months, attention will be firmly on 88 Energy’s second well, due to spud in March.
Nevertheless, the conventional play could be a big deal too.
To mining and Arian Silver Corporation plc (LON:AGQ, CVE:AGQ) updated on progress, saying it has been given more time to decide whether it wants to option Tierra Nueva Mining's (TNM) Noche Buena gold and silver tailings project in Mexico and is in early talks on further acquisitions.
As revealed in August this year, the time given to evaluate the site had been extended to October 28 - now this has been further extended to December 27
So far, metallurgical studies have achieved commercial gold grades in the concentrate but at the expense of recoveries and additional testwork is to ascertain whether a commercial gold recovery rate can be achieved, said Arian.
Elsewhere, Versarien Plc (LON:VRS) subsidiary 2-DTech is involved in a new project to develop a new generation of medical technologies, using graphene, the group told investors.
The project is funded by the UK government’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and it aims to explore how graphene can improve treatment of diseases including cancer, diabetes and dementia.
The EPSRC is providing £5.2mln of funding over five years.
Elsewhere, Diamondcorp Plc (LON:DCP) shares ticked a tad higher on Thursday as it unveiled further board changes.
Director Chris Ellis has been formally appointed as independent interim non-exec chairman with immediate effect, the South Africa-focused miner said.
Meanwhile, Neil McDougall becomes a non-executive director also with immediate effect.
McDougall's appointment comes after the financing facility with Rasmala plc announced last week and is in addition to the continued role of Michael Toxvaerd as non-exec director of DiamondCorp and Rasmala.
Wishbone Gold PLC (LON:WSBN) has raised £400,000 in a placing at 0.8p to advance the company, which is a precious metal trader and has exploration assets.
The firm issued 50mln new shares and around 3.07mln warrants with an exercise price of 1.3p with a life of two years to broker Beaufort Securities.
Chairman and chief executive Richard Poulden, said: "We are raising this funding to use for general working capital purposes and specifically for investment.
"Our debt facilities are primarily limited to supporting the trading operations. This concludes our current round of equity raising".
In director share dealing, medtech group ANGLE PLC (LON:AGL OTCQX:ANPCY) reported that Andrew Newland, chief executive, had bought shares worth £769,500 in the company.
The shares - 1.35mln at 57p each - were bought as part of sale and repurchase agreement announced in November two years ago, which has now ended.
Newland's legal and beneficial interest in ANGLE's capital remains the same as before the agreement - at 9.43%, the firm said.