Weekly Brief 23rd October
This weekend we leave all hopes of warm weather behind as British summer time comes to an end and our clocks go back an hour on Sunday.
Although all of our various gadgets now automatically do this for us to the point we probably don’t even notice it happening, this event used to be a feat of organisation back in the days of manual. However, twice a year we still all agonise over finding long-lost instructions to try and remember how to change the time on those few culpable manual items left – looking at you, oven timer – or just give up and inevitably rush out the door only to realise you are an hour early (the most likely scenario). What’s that saying again? Even a broken clock is right…6 months a year? Despite it seeming to be a practice as old as time (excuse the expression), daylight savings is only 100 years old. After being introduced in the 1916 Summer Time Act in the UK, it eventually became more widespread following the energy crisis in the 70s and is actually not founded on any scientific basis. Granted, gaining an extra hour of this particular year perhaps doesn’t give much cause to celebrate but it still has its benefits: who could say no to an extra hour in bed on a blissfully lazy Sunday morning?
Client News
Kibo Energy Plc (AIM: KIBO) released its unaudited interim results for the 6 month period ended 30 June 2020. Despite the impact of COVID-19 on field operations, positive progress has been made across its energy portfolio, particularly its Benga Power Plant Project in Mozambique and Mast Energy Development reserve power initiative in the UK. During the period, the company signed a binding term sheet with Baobab Resources to exclusively negotiate a 200 MW PPA at Benga and Kibo is now investigating the feasibility of increasing the planned generating capacity of the project to 400MW to meet the growing demand for power off-take opportunities. The PPA with Baobab will be completed in Q4 2020 and is being done in the context of this increased generating capacity being considered. Kibo also made solid progress at Bordersley, its initial UK reserve power generation site which forms part of the MED project, with commissioning scheduled for Q1 2021. Alongside this, and in light of identified development opportunities, Kibo intends to list MED on the standard market of the London Stock Exchange with an IPO scheduled for completion before the end of the year. Heads of Terms have also been signed for the acquisition of another 9 MW reserve power site as the company works toward assembling a portfolio of well-located flexible power sites in the UK. Elsewhere, the company’s projects in Botswana and Tanzania remain in good standing and Kibo is carefully considering how to best extract value from them. On a corporate level, during the period Kibo secured a £1 million credit facility in the form of a convertible loan note but the company subsequently implemented a broker sponsored placing in September for total proceeds of £1.45m and cancelled the convertible loan note. The placing proceeds should provide sufficient working capital to meet key project development milestones, particularly for Benga and MED, over the next twelve months.
Contango Holdings Plc (LSE: CGO) announced the acquisition of the Garalo Gold Project in Mali for $1m, which is expected to commence gold production in H2 2021 with a target production scenario of 30,000oz per annum. The acquisition of the low capex, high margin, near term production asset will further advance the strategy of acquiring defined assets with near-term production potential and modest capital requirements, and further drilling is expected to expand its resource and mine life. In conjunction with this, Contango has raised £1.8m through an oversubscribed Placing of 36,000,000 New Ordinary Shares at a price of 5p per Placing Share to provide funds for the first gold production at the project.
BlueRock Diamonds Plc (AIM: BRD) announced the sale of 2,900 carats at an average price of $300 per carat for an aggregate consideration of $870,165, marking the third successful private sale conducted through a South African agent. The sale is at a competitive price for the current market and demonstrates the consistent strong demand for BlueRock’s high quality diamonds.
Europa Oil & Gas Holdings Plc (AIM: EOG) has been granted a one year extension to the initial phase of the Inezgane Exploration Permit in offshore Morocco to November 2022 by the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines. This extension was granted for the time lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic and will enable Europa to complete its technical work programme which is focused on de-risking 30 prospects and leads that Europa estimates hold close to 10 billion barrels of unrisked oil resources. The Company’s forward plan for the licence is to build a robust prospect inventory and then secure one or more partners to drill wells.
Empire Metals Limited (AIM: EEE) has commenced reverse circulation drilling at the Eclipse Gold Project located 55km north-east of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. The drilling programme is designed to infill and develop a better understanding of the resources to the immediate north and south of the Eclipse shaft, test potential extensions to the mineralisation at depth at Eclipse, and test the mineralisation at target at the Houdini project. Subject to drilling results, a subsequent phase of drilling will be designed to further infill the resources around the Eclipse shaft, which historically produced 954 tonnes @ 24.6 g/t Au for 754.25 oz Au, to develop a resource and a potential open pit target. These are exciting times for the company and Empire is pleased to get this key element of the field programme at Eclipse moving.
Vast Resources (AIM: VAST) has confirmed that the flotation plant is now fully operational and producing concentrate following the announcement of 7 October 2020. Vast is also on track to surpass its initial copper sales delivery target included in the project production and associated operational cashflow forecasts and expects to complete the initial production of copper concentrate by the end of the month.
You may have missed…
Read about Critical Metals (AIM: CRTM) in Total Market Solutions, and find out more about its plans to build a portfolio focused on more exotic metals in Proactive Investors.
CEO of Oracle Power Plc (AIM: ORCP) gave an overview of her day to day running of the company with The Real Riviera.
Watch BlueRock Diamonds (AIM: BRD) shareholder Q&A with Value The Markets.
Executive Director of Contango Holdings Plc (AIM: CGO) Carl Esprey gave an interview with Share Talk on the acquisitor of the Garalo Gold Project.
In the news this week…
Under the alias Hercule Van Wolfwinkle, a father in Sussex has raised £5,000 for homeless charity Turning Tides through commissioning his doodled pet portraits.
This year has been a record-breaking year for oversized vegetables with three world records set – find out more about the secret lives of giant-vegetable growers.
A puppy with green fur has been born in Italy – and was promptly named Pistachio.
Cafes and restaurants are donating food in support of Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign.
A Dutch researcher gained access to Donald Trump’s infamous Twitter account by correctly guessing his password: maga2020!.
London’s National Theatre reopened its doors again this week for the first performance of Death of England: Delroy.
Royal Mail has launched its parcel collection service for 72p per parcel in one of its biggest changes since 1852.
Although we still don’t have a hover-board, Back to the Future Day celebrated its 35th anniversary this week on the 21st – 5 years after the future date visited in the film.
This week the harvest festival of apple day was celebrated in the UK – you can even go pick your own at various National Trust locations.