Desire Petroleum (HOLD £1.50) (DES, 100p, ? (1.48%)) announced that the Liz 14/19-1 well, in the North Falkland Basin, has reached a depth of 3570m and logging is underway. The primary Liz target was encountered at around 2550m with indications of hydrocarbons while drilling. Subsequent logging operations have shown that oil may be present in thin intervals but that reservoir quality is poor. Wireline sampling is still to be carried out. Deeper gas shows have also been encountered while drilling, particularly below 3400m and these have still to be evaluated by wireline logging and sampling. Until the logging is complete and the results analysed it will not be possible to determine the significance of the hydrocarbons encountered and whether the well will need to be drilled deeper, suspended for testing or plugged and abandoned.
Comment: The lack of good reservoir is a disappointment but not unexpected in this type of environment. This is not a good result but hopefully the logs will provide valuable data. Rockhopper Exploration has a 7.5% interest in this prospect.
Maple Energy (MPLE, 66.5p, ? (0.0%)) provided an update on its reserves and contingent resources for its Maquia, Agua Caliente, and Pacaya oil fields. As at December 31st 2009, the fields have net proved probable and possible resources of 3.21MMbbl, down from 4.75MMbbl last year. The company also announced that it and certain of its subsidiaries have executed agreements with three multi-lateral development banks and a Peruvian financial institution to provide senior secured debt financing of approximately US$140.0m for the Company's ethanol project on the northern coast of Peru.
Petroceltic (PCI, 13p, ? (1.89%)) announced that it has conditionally raised gross proceeds of approximately US$120.5m through a conditional placing of 635,294,000 new Ordinary Shares at a price of 12.75p per share. Proceeds will be used to support the Company's appraisal programme in Algeria and to fund proposed drilling activities in Italy and for general corporate purposes.
Frontier Mining (FML, 6.38p, ? (6.25%)) announced the first assay results from its infill drill programme at its Benkala Copper project in north-western Kazakhstan. Results from the first 3 holes gave intervals of 26.5m @ 0.59% Cu, 6.0m @ 0.58% Cu and 31.0m @ 0.55% Cu.
Stratex International (BUY, £0.07) (STI, 3.38p, ? (0.0%)) announced an exploration update at its Megenta gold discovery in the Afar…
