• Union Jack Oil*** (LON:UJO– 0.15p) – Bulking Up: Today’s news that the Company has completed its acquisition of the 20% interest in Fiskerton airfield underlines the Company's commitment to the aim of increasing its exposure to relatively low risk appraisal and redevelopment opportunities. With this acquisition, the underlying portfolio starts to move away from higher risk exploration and build towards a position at which it becomes self-sustaining. Ahead of more details on Fiskerton's prospectivity, we are reiterating our valuation, which remains $6.9mm/0.13p (Core) to $38.1mm/0.73p (Full).
• Zenith Energy (LON:ZEN– 10p/C$0.16) – Context Required: Today's announcement is positive on the one hand, that the management team are learning from its experiences, but “learning about the well as we go along” does not fill us with confidence. It does, however, underline our repeated assertion that the Company needs to set the outline of the programme it is working towards; maybe this is part of a wider programme, we just don’t know. In undertaking a successful field rehabilitation, there must be a clear understanding of the field and how the actions that you undertake impact the reservoir. Traditionally, this is done by having a relatively small section of the field that you identify as being representative of the wider field, and executing a pilot project. In so doing, you understand the reservoir and, more importantly, you understand how your actions will precipitate a response in the reservoir. This may be what is happening here, but, and this is the point, we don't know because the Company hasn't provided a route map with deliverables against which it can be measured. We have said it before, and we repeat it again, the Company needs to set out what it’s going to do and how it is going to do it. Just blindly approaching the field on a well by well basis is, in our opinion, a sure-fire way to create a problem further down the line.