Marble quarries operator Fox Marble Holdings PLC (LON:FOX) has bagged a breakthrough order from an Indian marble export house.
The company upped its 2017 order book size from €2.9mln to €4.1mln as it unveiled a three-year deal with Mahadev Marmo, India’s second largest green marble export house, worth US$1.8mln a year.
To put that into perspective, in the first half of 2016, Fox Marble had sales of €262,000.
Elsewhere, Hurricane Energy PLC’s (LON:HUR) 300mln barrel estimate for the Lancaster field is now deemed too conservative.
The North Sea oiler upgraded its in-house estimate for Lancaster to 300mln barrels last summer shortly after the completion of two well on the field, but now, further analysis suggests the oil resource is even bigger.
A new competent persons report (CPR) is due to be completed before the end of the first quarter and when it comes Hurricane expects a material uplift in contingent oil resources, as well as reserves tied to a planned early production system.
The growing digital market group Be Heard Group PLC (LON:BHRD) is branching into analytics with a £1.7mln deal.
It is handing over a mix of paper and cash for a 75% stake in a company called Freemavens as well as paying off its debts.
Be Heard also announced it is launching a £2.1mln stock placing at 3.6p a share - a modest discount to last night - to fund the transaction.
In other news, Darwin Capital has now converted all of its Premier African Minerals Limited (LON:PREM) loan notes into Premier shares.
The final 27 notes were converted at an issue price of 0.212368p per share, resulting in the issue of 317.84mln shares and the receipt of £675,000 by Premier.
Premier’s shares shot up 21.3% t0 0.697p on the news.
Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) has told investors that drilling will begin on the TE-8 well at the Tendrara gas project this month.
It comes as the company confirmed the mobilisation of the Saipem rig that will be used for the programme.
Ground works at the TE-8 location are now complete, the rig is moving from the TE-7 site, and it is expected to ‘rig up’ by mid-February.
Concepta PLC (LON:CPT) is to broaden its product range to include a stress test to help both women and men with fertility problems.
A technology transfer and licence agreement has been agreed with Selective Antibodies, a UK based diagnostics company.
Concepta will be given exclusive rights to rights to Selective’s intellectual property in return for fees and a royalty on any products sold.
Amryt Pharma PLC (LON:AMYT) has received a boost in the form of a patent grant in Japan for its lead drug candidate, Episalvan.
It has already secured legal protection for the treatment in the US, Europe, Canada and Australia.
And finally, intellectual property portfolio developer Amphion Innovations Plc (LON:AMP) has drawn down another US$500,000 from the loan facility it announced in June 2014.
The current loan balance under the facility after the additional draw-down will be US$5.8mln.