Fox Davies Capital Update featuring Aurelian Oil & Gas, Geopark Holdings, European Goldfields, Coal of Africa, Goldplat Plc, Medusa Mining

Oil & Gas Corporate News

Aurelian Oil & Gas Plc (LON:AUL, 37.25p, ? (0.68%)) announced that Sorgenia E&P has exercised its option to drill on the B1-Golitza licence, onshore eastern Bulgaria. Having paid for 3D seismic, Sorgenia is now earning a 30% interest in the licence by paying a 40% share of the costs of the first two wells up to a cap of $4.5m (gross).  The 10% promote will be split 6.67% for the benefit of Aurelian's wholly owned Bulgarian subsidiary, Balkan Explorers (Bulgaria) Limited, and 3.33% for the benefit of JKX Oil & Gas (Bulgaria) Limited. The plan is to drill up to two wells in  2010 the first of which  will test a 30Bcf prospect at 1,500m, updip of the depleted Stary Oryahovo gas field, discovered in the 1960s. Further advice on drilling times will be announced upon advice from the operator JKX. The percentages in the block are JKX 40%, Aurelian 30% and Sorgenia 30%. Also, the Company's wholly owned Bulgarian subsidiary, Balkan Explorers (Bulgaria) Limited, together with Overgas Inc. AD, a Joint Venture company controlled by Gazprom, and JKX (Bulgaria) Limited, has signed an agreement with the Minister for Environment and Waters in Bulgaria for the award of the Provadia licence, onshore in eastern Bulgaria. The Provadia block covers an area of 1,787km2, part of which was carved out of the B-Golitza and B1-Golitza licences in 2007. The play involves large structures containing Palaeozoic reservoirs classically trapped under a Permian salt seal. Provadia will be operated by Overgas. As part of the arrangements, Overgas will pay no less than Eur4m of the minimum work programme, effectively providing a free carry to Aurelian and its partner JKX through this phase of the project. Interests in the Provadia licence will be Overgas 64%, Aurelian 18% and JKX 18%.

Geopark Hldgs (LON:GPK, 490p, ? (8.29%)) announced the successful drilling and testing of a new discovery oil well on the Guanaco prospect on the Fell Block in Chile. GeoPark operates and has a 100% working interest in the Fell Block. GeoPark drilled and completed the Guanaco 3 well to a total depth of 2,752m. A production test in the Springhill formation, at approximately 2,590m in an 8m perforated interval, flowed at a rate of approximately 470b/d of 33oAPI with a 2% water cut through a choke of 50mm and with a well head pressure of 30psi. These are preliminary results and further production history will be required to determine stabilised flow rates and the extent of the reservoir. A beam-pumping unit and production facilities are now being installed and production is targeted to commence within seven days. The production test in Guanaco 3 represents the third successful well and first exploration discovery drilled by GeoPark in 2010. Preliminary interpretations indicate the Guanaco structure to be approximately 3.5km2 in area. The Guanaco field is located in the south central area of the Fell Block and represents a previously undrilled area by GeoPark covering approximately 150km2 and where vintage 2D interpretations indicate the presence of several oil and gas prospects. GeoPark is currently completing a 90km2 3D seismic survey over this area, to complement an existing 3D survey over the well location, as well as, a new 70km2 3D seismic survey in another unexplored region to the northwest. Processing and interpretation of these new 3D surveys is expected to be complete by the end of 2Q10. Following these surveys, the Fell Block will be covered by 1,007km2 of 3D seismic representing approximately 57% of the total block area. In other operations and as part of its 15-17 well drilling program in 2010 in Chile, GeoPark has completed drilling the Aonikenk Sur 1 well where testing operations will begin in April. Drilling is also now being completed on the Alakaluf 7 well, which will be followed by the Alakaluf 9 well. On the large Tranquilo and Otway Blocks in southern Chile, GeoPark has initiated 2D seismic surveys covering 545km and 3D seismic surveys covering 430km2. Drilling operations on the Tranquilo Block is targeted to commence in 4Q10. 

Mining Corporate News

European Goldfields (LON:EGU, 401.25p, ? (4.97%)) announced that the last remaining approval required for the grant of the Zonal Urbanisation Plan relating to Certej has been issued by the Regional Department for Environmental Protection, Timisoara. Formal public notice of this approval has been issued today in Romania and, at the next meeting of the Certej council which is expected within the next week, the full PUZ permit will be granted. The grant of the PUZ will be a milestone which takes European Goldfields one step closer to production. Certej contains 2.4 million reserve ounces of gold, plus 17.3 million reserve ounces of silver, and lies in an area which was a major gold producer historically and retains considerable future potential. The Company is already well advanced in the next and final substantive part of the permitting process for Certej, being the approval of the full Environmental Impact Study.

£COA (LON:COA, 132.5p, ? (0.38%)) announced that it had received approval from the South African Department of Mineral Resources to its application to take a bulk sample from its Makhado coking coal project. The company will now commence the sampling process, which will involve excavating an opencast pit on the Farm Tanga. 411,000 bank cubic meters of overburden will be removed to expose 19,100 tones of run-of-mine coal. This coal will be transported to Tshikondeni Colliery where it will be beneficiate to a 12% ash coking coal. This is expected to provide 4,400 tones of product which will be sampled and analyzed at CoAL's laboratory in Polokwane.

£GOP (LON:GDP, 11p, ? (2.33%)) announced the signing of an ongoing agreement with AngloGold Ashanti (Ghana) Limited to purchase gold bearing materials for processing at its operations in Tema, Ghana. The Company is confident that the gold produced from these materials will increase GRG's overall monthly gold production figures.

Medusa Mining Ld (LON:MML, 218p, ? (0.46%))announced the commissioning of the Co-O mill expansion is progressing well and the Company is set to meet its targeted production of 25,000 ounces of gold this quarter.