Smallcap Oil & Gas Round-up with a sprinkling of Miners!

It’s here again doesn’t the week fly by. The weekly BMD oil & Gas round-up. It’s becoming quite successful with last weeks round-up attracting over 6,000 direct hits!

Aminex;

Updated the market on Nyuni-2 which was spudded on 17 June targeting Lower Cretaceous age Neocomian sandstones, similar to those found in Aminex’s nearby Kiliwani North gas field and in the producing Songo-Songo gas field.  The well is being drilled from a pad on Nyuni Island at an angle of 30 degrees from vertical, to target a bottom hole location approximately 1,200 metres SE of the surface location.  Planned measured total depth is 3,325 metres from the rotary table on the rig. With the exception of an 8 day period when the rig was shut down due to a requirement to replace damaged equipment, drilling operations have made satisfactory progress to date and 9 ⅝” casing is now being run to the current total measured depth of 2,945 metres.  Once the well has been safely cased to this point, drilling will resume towards its target.  The result of the well will be announced at the earliest opportunity.

Ascent Resources;

Informed investors that the drlling results of the Pg-10 well at the Petišovci Project in Slovenia confirm the reservoir quality and potential commerciality of the Middle Miocene reservoir section, which is independently estimated to contain over 400 Bcf of gas-in-place, and delineate the substantial new deeper reservoir section discovered by the Pg-11A well

Aurelian Oil & Gas;

Released a Polish operational update. Stating that a 14-28 day stabilised flow test commenced at second Siekierki Multi-Fracced Horizontal Well Trzek-3. A stabilised flow test, expected to last between 14 and 28 days, has now commenced at the second Siekierki, Trzek-3. The planned six fracs have been completed without material mechanical issues. Well clean up operations and a Memory Production Log have all been completed. A further update will be provided at the end of the stabilised flow test. Trzek-3 is targeting a separate high to other wells in the Siekierki structure with a recoverable resource estimated at between 16 and 28bcf. The Siekierki project is located on the Poznan licences which are 100% held by Energia Zachόd Sp. z.o.o., a company owned 90% by Aurelian and 10% by Avobone N.V.

Cadogan Petroleum;

Yesterday announced their Half Yearly reports. Copys of which can be viewed by clicking this link.

http://www.cadoganpetroleum.com/~/media/Files/C/Cadogan-Petroleum/investor/reports/2011/hy-results-2011.pdf?

Chaarat Gold Holdings;

It’s been a weird week for Chaarat. The Board announced that Mr. Benoit de Galbert, Chief Operating Officer, left the Company. (No explanation) Dekel Golan, Chief Executive, continues to lead the operational team in Kyrgyzstan so as to ensure uninterrupted progress on the construction of the Tulkubash Project. Activities on site and in Bishkek are continuing and the project is progressing satisfactorily. The Tulkubash benefits from open pit free milling ore. The total resource estimate for the Chaarat Project now stands at 4.736 Moz, at an average grade of 4.28 g/t.

Cove Energy;

A busy week for Cove on the RNS front with no less than 3 company epistles. The first piece of news was the Barquentine 2 – Successful Appraisal Well Offshore Mozambique. This is the first well in a planned continuous two-year exploration/appraisal drilling and well testing programme utilising two drillships. The overall objective of this programme is to confirm the true resource range of this prolific block, and obtain all necessary data, initially in the Windjammer/Barquentine/Lagosta discovery area, to independently certify gas reserves for the planned Liquefied Natural Gas project for which certain engineering and design contracts have now been awarded. The second news release was an acknowledgement of the release by Cairn Energy regarding Coves involvement with the East Mediterranean Bidding Group which is a consortium seeking to take part in the upcoming Lebanon licencing rounds in the Levant Basin of the Eastern Mediterranean. The third and final piece of news was a TR1 holdings notification in which Blackrocks’ holding in the company is now judged to be below 11%.

Empyrean Energy;

Announces that following receipt of conversion notices in relation £151,000 of the convertible loan currently drawn down (plus interest component), it has today issued 3,227,050 new Ordinary Shares at price of 5.00p being the 7 business day volume weighted average price per ordinary share traded in the Company’s shares up to the day of conversion. Application has been made for the new Ordinary Shares to be admitted to AIM and dealings are expected to commence on 31 August 2011. The balance of the loan, amounting to £849,000 remains drawn down. Following the issue of the shares, Empyrean’s total issued and voting share capital will comprise of 196,606,421 ordinary shares.

Faroe Petroleum;

Some much needed good news for Faroe as the company announced an oil discovery in the Fulla prospect in the west of Shetland. The well drilled through a gross oil column of 133 feet and a net oil column of 45 ft. Faroe Petroleum is considering development options that include the nearby Freya discovery made in 1980. In December 2010 Faroe farmed out a 50% interest in the licence to Canadian Overseas Petroleum

Global Petroleum;

A busy week on the news front for Global. Texon Petroleum advised that the second Eagle Ford well in which Global has an interest (Tyler Ranch EFS #2H) has been successfully fracced over 17 stages and will now be tested.  The recovery of frac fluid will probably take a few days after which Texon will conduct a proper flow test of the well.Global has a 7.939% working interest in approximately 1,651 acres beneath the Olmos formation including the Eagle Ford Shale.  Global’s interest in the Leighton prospect also includes a 15% working interest in approximately 873 acres from the surface down to the stratigraphic equivalent of the Olmos formation. Global then announced it had completed the acquisition of Jupiter Petroleum Limited (“Jupiter”) which holds prospective oil and gas exploration interests in offshore Namibia and in offshore Juan de Nova, a French dependency in the Mozambique Channel.

Gulfsands Petroleum;

Said that following the imposition by the UK of sanctions against Rami Makhlouf and members of his family, it has suspended all payments to the Makhlouf Interests under various commercial agreements, including suspending rights over the shares in Gulfsands held by the Makhlouf interests. Gulfsands added that all relationships with Rami Makhlouf have been conducted on arms-length commercial terms, have been properly documented and the company has behaved at all times with absolute propriety.

Ithaca Energy;

Has now completed the transaction to acquire a 28.46% non-operated interest in the Cook oil field in the North Sea from Hess.

Jubilant Energy;

Has released news on the spud of KPL-C well which is the second of a seven development wells of the Phase-III drilling campaign in the Kharsang Field, Arunachal Pradesh, India. The first development well KSG#57 has been successfully drilled and Jubilant has identified four separate intervals totalling to 20 metres of net sand for testing.

Max Petroleum;

Announced that drilling has commenced at the SAGW-1 exploration well on the Sagiz West prospect in Block E, which has estimated unrisked mean resource potential of 26 million barrels of oil in a four-way, Triassic rim structure. Total depth of the well will be approximately 1,600 metres.

Rockhopper Exploration;

Announced that it has spud the 14/10-7 exploration well in the North Falkland Basin. The well is located approximately 3.3km to the north west of the 14/10-2 discovery well, just outside of the Sea Lion Discovery Area. The Well is designed to investigate reservoir and hydrocarbon presence towards the northern limit of the currently mapped extent of the Sea Lion Main Complex.

San Leon Energy;

Confirmed that it has agreed takeover terms with Realm Energy International. Realm shareholders will have the choice of receiving either or a combination of C$1.30 in cash per share or 3.30 ordinary shares of San Leon. San Leon said that the acquisition would bring together two complementary portfolios to create a focused and large shale acreage position in Poland’s Baltic Basin.

Sound Oil;

Announced that it has been awarded the Rapagnano Concession, located in the Marche Region of central Italy. The Rapagnano gas field on the concession had previously produced 4.1 Bscf of gas into the national network until it was shut-in in 2001. Sound OIl expects to put the field back on stream at an approximate estimated cost of US$0.5 million with expected first revenue in Q2 of 2012.

Wessex Exploration;

Confirmation from tiddler Wessex came from the company as it announced that it had adequate funds to cover its 1.5% share of costs of the late running drilling operation at the Zaedyus prospect, offshore French Guiana. The final section of the well is now being drilled and results are expected in September of this year.