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Proactive news headlines: Applied Graphene Materials, Zephyr Energy, Sensyne Health, Landore Resources …

Last updated: 15:33 14 Jan 2021 GMT, First published: 15:30 14 Jan 2021 GMT

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Applied Graphene Materials PLC (LON:AGM) has noted that the European Chemical Agency (ECHA) has approved a volume threshold of 1 to 10 tonnes for graphene powder usage per annum for graphene products supplied by the Graphene REACH registration consortium, of which the company is a member. The AIM-listed firm said the approval from the regulator represented a “major milestone” for the graphene industry and will enable members of the consortium to supply quantities of graphene materials in volume. Applied Graphene Materials added that the new volume threshold provided “confidence in the potential for volume quantity use of graphene materials in the range of applications” that members of the consortium are pursuing.

Zephyr Energy PLC (LON:ZPHR) said it has completed the State 16-2 well ahead of schedule, and the initial results are positive. The company confirmed that the Utah well was drilled to a depth of 9,745 feet and indications from drilling data suggest the presence of hydrocarbons across multiple reservoir intervals. It has taken 113 feet of core across the historically productive Cane Creek reservoir interval, plus core from seven shallower exploration targets. Additionally, Zephyr noted that it captured new petrophysical information from the well.

Sensyne Health PLC (LON:SENS) has launched a smartphone app that can accurately read and analyse a lateral flow coronavirus (COVID-19) test in under two seconds. The group's MagnifEye technology uses a cloud-based deep learning algorithm to automate the process. It can be quickly ‘trained’ for alternative uses such as to assess for cancer, infectious disease and fertility, as well as being deployed for plant pathogen and environmental testing. Marketed as a business-to-business commercial product, it exists not just as a smartphone app but can be incorporated into a website or native software applications.

Landore Resources Limited (LON:LND) said a soil sampling programme carried out along the strike to the east and west of its BAM gold project in Ontario, Canada has established the presence of “widespread anomalous gold” at the site. The explorer said a new soil-till sampling campaign covering 2 kilometres along strike to the east of the project completed in 2020 indicated “multiple gold trends” and recorded the highest soil-till assay results to date, adding that the results supported extending resource drilling at the site.

IQ-AI Ltd (LON:IQAI) said interest continues to increase in its liver surface nodularity (LSN) platform as the med-tech group provided a wide-ranging assessment of its portfolio. Driving interest in the technology, which has regulatory sign-off both in the US and Europe, is its ability to perform virtual biopsies to help assess chronic liver disease for a large patient population. The company said the sales and marketing teams of the company's channel partners were trained on LSN platform.

AFC Energy PLC (LON:AFC) has signed a strategic engineering collaboration with Ricardo PLC (LON:RCDO), the global engineering consultancy. The primary focus of the collaboration will be on finding ways to exploit AFC’s alkaline fuel cell technology, particularly in the marine (shipping and ports), rail and stationary power generation markets, where Ricardo is seen as one of the market leaders. The AIM-listed hydrogen power technology specialist said the marine applications will consider the benefits of using green ammonia as a key vector for the storage of energy, leveraging the ability of AFC's fuel cells to use low-cost hydrogen derived from cracked ammonia.

Eurasia Mining PLC (LON:EUA has provided an update on the formal sale process initiated by the company under the UK Takeover Code on July 1, 2020. The palladium, platinum, rhodium, iridium and gold producing company said it and its advisers have engaged with a wide range of parties, and have to date received non-binding offers in respect of both a possible acquisition of the company as well as other transaction structures. The group added that progress to date has been slower than expected reflecting the complexity of the process, involving several parties and structures, as well as external factors including coronavirus (COVID-19) related travel restrictions.

Instem PLC (LON:INS) has said it traded in line with the board’s expectations in 2020, despite the wider market impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The provider of information solutions to the global life sciences market saw revenues grow by more than 11% year-on-year in 2020, with recurring revenues growing strongly as the company makes the transition to software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. All three areas of its business – Study Management, Regulatory Solutions and Informatics – performed well, the company said in a trading update, with an “excellent first full-year contribution” to the Informatics area from the November 2019 acquisition of Leadscope.

Anglo Asian Mining PLC (LON:AAZ)  has reported record revenues for 2020 as higher gold prices offset disruption from coronavirus (COVID-19) and the new outbreak of fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The AIM-listed group’s Gedabek mine in Azerbaijan produced 69,000 ounces of gold equivalent ounces during 2020 compared to 82,800 a year earlier, but this decline was offset by a 26% rise in the average gold price achieved from sales to US$1,777 per ounce. Revenues for the year topped US$100mln as a result, Anglo Asian said, while cash generation was also strong with the group paying off all of its debt and ending the year with net cash of US$21.2mln.

Mosman Oil and Gas Limited (LON:MSMN) has said its Falcon-1 well in Texas is now producing at a rate of 180 barrels per day (boepd). The AIM-listed group's share of production is 90 boepd for its 50% working interest, which nets to 68 boepd after royalties. Mosman noted that Falcon-1 is its highest gross production well and also the one where it has the highest working interest.

Thor Mining PLC (LON:THR) (ASX:THR) said it has completed the acquisition of additional licence areas adjacent to Ragged Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.  Thor previously advised the execution of a non-binding Terms Sheet for this acquisition on November 23, 2020. The new ground includes historical small scale gold and copper mines and a 13-kilometre gold zone.

Jubilee Metals Group PLC (LON:JLP) saw earnings more than double in the second half of 2020 as its platinum (PGM) and chrome tailings recovery operations ran at record levels. Earnings from the PGM and chrome businesses rose by 123% to £28.4mln in the six months to end December compared to £12.8mln first half of the year. The percentage increase was even larger in rand terms. PGM and chrome revenues rose by 64% to £48.2mln in the second half of 2020.

Capital Ltd (LON:CAPD) has highlighted current market conditions that are extremely positive for its drilling business with its revenue growth boosted by robust gold prices and strong levels of tendering activity. In a trading update, the drilling contractor said its full-year revenue amounted to US$135mln for 2020, up 18% on the prior year. Revenue in the fourth quarter rose by 13% to US$34.6mln. Rig utilisation in the period was marked at 59% which was in-line with the comparative figure for 2019. It had 94 rigs at the end of the year.

Trident Royalties PLC (LON:TRR) said that drilling at the Lake Rebecca gold project in Western Australia, in which it owns a 1.5% net smelter royalty, has shown potential for “significant upgrades” to the mineral resource estimate in an update scheduled for the second quarter of 2021. The mining royalty and streaming firm said that drilling at the Rebecca deposit to de-risk future mining studies, carried out by the project’s owner Apollo Consolidated, have returned “strong gold drill intercepts” as well as “significant new hanging-wall gold mineralisation”  and “new near-surface gold mineralisation”.

Amur Minerals Corporation (LON:AMC) told investors it has received the fourth quarter interest payment from its investment in privately owned company Nathan River Resources (NRR). The group received US$164,768 of interest on the US$4.67mln convertible loan note investment made to NRR, for the restart of the Roper Bar iron ore project, in Australia’s Northern Territory. This is the first full quarter interest payments, following the resumption of production at Roper Bar in October 2020.

IronRidge Resources Limited (LON:IRR) said drilling has commenced at the Ewoyaa lithium project in Ghana in an attempt to expand the resource at the site. The AIM-listed company said the first hole drilled has intersected visible spodumene, a source of lithium, on a new target within 500 metres (m) of the current resource, adding that 10,000m of the total 12,500m of planned drilling is designed to test seven high-priority targets to add potential resource tonnes. IronRidge said the remaining 2,500m of drilling will test an additional three exploration targets; Ndasiman, Amoanda and Hweda within the Saltpond and Apam West licenses, which are located within adjoining exploration licences and form part of an ongoing pipeline of project development within its “highly prospective” lithium portfolio.

Pembridge Resources PLC (LON:PERE) has announced the appointments of a new president and interim CFO of Minto Explorations Ltd. The group said the board of directors and the joint advisory committee (JAC) of Minto have appointed Christopher A. Stewart to the position of president as of January 13, 2021. They have also appointed Jack Cartmel to the position of interim CFO of Minto.

Bezant Resources PLC (LON:BZT) told investors that the latest results from the Hope copper-gold project in Namibia have provided increased motivation to test the 130 kilometre strike. The company noted that the findings from assaying the samples of two drill holes completed by Bezant at Hope’s Gorob-Vendome massive sulphide deposit indicate continuity of copper-gold mineralisation within the inferred mineral resource envelope. Assay results include 3.57 metres at an average 4.36% copper and 0.64 grams per tonne gold, and 3 metres at an average 2.18% copper and 0.26% gold as part of wider copper-gold mineralisation.

Strategic Minerals PLC (LON:SML) has reported what it said were “strong” quarterly sales from its Cobre magnetite operation in New Mexico, USA. In an update for the quarter to December 31, 2020, the mineral producer reported sales from the project of US$747,000, up from US$713,000 a year ago, while tonnage from the site increased to 12,845 tonnes from 12,202 in 2019. Annual sales, meanwhile, increased to US$3.03mln from US$2.49mln while production rose to 51,518 tonnes from 42,517. The company noted that it has also appointed Karen Williams as chief financial officer to replace Julien McInally, who is leaving to follow alternative employment opportunities, while the firm itself ended 2020 with a cash balance of US$0.83mln.

Powerhouse Energy Group PLC (LON:PHE) has raised £10mln through an oversubscribed placing of shares at 5.5p a pop. The waste-to-energy specialist said the funds will enable the company to significantly speed up the first commercial-scale distributed modular generation (DMG) installation using the company’s technology, which Powerhouse is looking to achieve by the end of March. Completion of the first reference site will be commercially and strategically important to the company, not least as a springboard for overseas sales and marketing, Powerhouse added.

Tower Resources PLC (LON:TRP) has raised £1.25mln via a share placing as it seeks to restructure its financing arrangements. The company is issuing 384.6mln new shares priced at 0.325p each in the placing, organised by ETX Capital. Proceeds will be used to terminate and repay a US$500,000 loan facility with Shard Capital, which falls due at the end of February. The company said it will repay the facility without triggering conversion options. The remainder of the proceeds will provide working capital and support the company as seismic data from the Algoa-Gamtoos license in South Africa is reprocessed and interpreted.

Argo Blockchain PLC(LON:ARB), the leading cryptocurrency miner said it has received notices of exercise of certain warrants over ordinary shares of £0.001 each in the capital of the company. As a result of the exercise, the company has issued in aggregate 550,000 new ordinary shares to the holders of the warrants at the exercise price of £0.16 per share. The aggregate gross proceeds to the company from the warrant exercise is £88,000.

Condor Gold PLC (LON:CNR) (TSX:COG) said that following the receipt of notices for the exercise of warrants from Mark Child, its executive chairman and Jeffrey Karoly, its chief financial officer the group is issuing 33,333 new ordinary shares with a nominal value of 20p each in the capital of the company at a subscription price of 31p per share, comprising 20,833 shares to Child and 12,500 shares to Karoly. The company has received gross proceeds of £10,333. Following the issue, Child will be interested in 4,200,730 Condor Gold ordinary shares representing 3.5% of the company's enlarged issued share capital and Karoly will be interested in 149,078 ordinary shares representing 0.1% of the company's share capital.

Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC (LON:CMCL) said it received notification yesterday from BlackRock, Inc., which is a "significant shareholder" of the company that it crossed a particular threshold for notification of its holdings in the company on January 12, 2021.  According to the notification, as at that date, the shareholder holds indirectly 604,129 voting rights attached to the shares in the company, which represents 4.98% of the issued share capital; and has an interest in 0.53% of voting rights through financial instruments (represented by 32,800 voting rights that may be acquired through securities lending and 31,675 voting rights in the form of CFD). Accordingly, the shareholder's total interest in voting rights equates to 5.51% of the company's issued share capital which, as at this date, comprises 12,118,823 shares of no par value. 

Redx Pharma PLC (LON:REDX), the drug discovery and development company focused on cancer and fibrosis, has said it will be releasing its preliminary results for the full year ended September 30, 2020, on January 27, 2021. A live webcast for analysts will be held at 12.00pm on January 27, 2021.  To join the webcast, investors should register in advance by sending an e-mail to redxpharma@fticonsulting.com. A recording of the webcast will be made available on Redx Pharma's website following the results meeting.

Touchstone Exploration Inc. (LON:TXP) (TSX:TXP), an oil and gas exploration and production company active in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, has said it will be presenting at the Proactive Investors One2One virtual investor forum today, January 14, 2021 at 18:00 GMT. The presentation, given by Paul Baay, CEO, will be followed by a virtual Q&A session. To register for the event please use the following link: https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/register/event_details/311

Iconic Labs PLC (LON:ICON) said it has been served with a claim from the European High Growth Opportunities Securitization Fund (EHGOF). The company said while EHGOF has filed the claim in the High Court in London, it has yet to file particulars of claim setting out its exact nature, and therefore the firm said it is unable to respond or comment in any detail until such time as EHGOF files the necessary documentation to evidence its alleged claim.

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