Stock movers for the week of August 5, 2013:
On Tuesday, New Zealand Energy Corp. (
TSX: V.NZ,
Stock Forum) rose 1.5% to 33.5 cents on Tuesday after the oil and natural gas company said the acquisition of the licenses and assets in the Taranaki Basin, New Zealand for $33.5 from Origin Energy Resources NZ (TAWN) Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Origin Energy Ltd. (
OGFGF), is proceeding. The assets being acquired include three net petroleum mining licenses totaling 23,049 acres (the TWN Licences) as well as the Waihapa production station and associated gathering and sales infrastructure. Closing of the acquisition is subject to NZEC meeting the financing condition precedent by August 14 and the government approval condition precedent by September 13, in order to close the acquisition by Sept. 20, 2013. Meanwhile, on July 30, 2013, NZEC announced a binding agreement with privately- held L&M Energy Ltd., whereby L&M will pay NZEC $18.25 million to form a 50/50 joint venture to explore, develop and operate the TWN licenses and the TWN assets. Following closing, NZEC will become the operator of the TWN licenses and Waihapa production station. NZEC has also prepared a detailed
financial and production model outlining its exploration and development program for its Taranaki assets.
On Wednesday, Allana Potash Corp. (
TSX: T.AAA,
Stock Forum) climbed 6% to 45 cents on Wednesday after the exploration and development company said, after submitting complete mining permit documentation to the Ministry of Mines of Ethiopia, it is now entering the stage of final clarifications on certain aspects with the Ethiopian government and expects the approval of the mining permit for its Danakhil Potash project in the next few weeks. The Danakil Potash project, located in Ethiopia’s northeastern Danakil Depression, has a combined measured and indicated resource estimate of 2.5 billion tonnes containing 438.2 million tonnes grading 17.9% KCI. Furthermore, the company has successfully advanced talks on both off-take and equity investment with a number of large fertilizer companies in the last several weeks. Under the current conditions in the sector, the interest in Allana's low-cost potash project has increased and some of these organizations are now pursuing a potential partnership agreement with Allana.
Scorpio Gold. (
TSX: V.SGN,
Stock Forum) lost 2.1% to 23 cents after the gold mining company said the 2013 satellite program commenced with infill drilling along the northwest mineralized trend that extends from the Brodie pit to the Bluelite deposit on the Mineral Ridge project, Nevada. According to Scorpio, a mineral resource estimate for the satellite deposits is in the final stages of preparation and will be released shortly. The drill has now moved to the Bluelite deposit. A second drill rig is scheduled to arrive on site in September 2013, which the company intends to dedicate to the satellite-drilling program. Highlights from recent drill results include 19.8 metres grading 0.68 grams per tonne gold and 9.14 metres of 1.27 grams per tonne gold.
In Thursday trading, Ashburton Ventures Inc. (
TSX: V.ABR,
Stock Forum) climbed 9% to six cents before closing unchanged at 5.5 cents as investors assessed the news that the junior explorer had completed the first phase of exploration on its Sienna uranium project in the Athabasca Basin. Fifteen radon cups were deployed along an east-west transect on the southeastern claims, and several boulders with scintillometer counts as high as 360 counts per second were also discovered. The boulders have basement rock lithologies similar to those reported by Alpha Minerals Inc. (
TSX: V.AMW,
Stock Forum) and Fission Uranium Corp. (
TSX: V.FCU,
Stock Forum) in the early stages of the Patterson Lake South uranium discovery. Samples were collected from nine of the boulders and will be submitted for assay with results expected in the coming weeks.
Banro Corp. (
TSX: T.BAA,
Stock Forum) was up 8.8% to 87 cents. The stock is reacting to news of the gold mining company’s plan to release its second quarter 2013 financial results on Tuesday, August 13, 2013.
And, on Friday, Bayfield Ventures Corp. (
TSX: V.BYV,
Stock Forum) climbed 14.6% to 27.5 cents as investors assessed the news that the exploration junior is resuming drilling at its Burns Block gold-silver project in north-western Ontario. The Burns Block project is located adjacent to the east of New Gold Inc.'s (
TSX: T.NGD,
Stock Forum) multi-million ounce Rainy River gold-silver deposit and to the west of their expanding Intrepid gold-silver zone. The results of a recently completed program of advanced geological, geotechnical and geochemical studies at company's Burns Block and "B" Block properties are being used in gold-silver zone extension drilling in several areas of the Burns Block project. A drill rig and crew are currently being mobilized to the Burns Block with drilling expected to resume around the middle of August.
Zodiac Exploration (
V.ZEX,
Stock Forum) continues to shuffle upward on high volume, with a 1c jump to $0.095 on the back of 8,000,000+ shares moved in today's trading. Zodiac, which holds promising land amid a throng of shale majors in California, is widely considered to be undervalued with $17m cash in hand, no debt, and a potentially attractive piece of real estate.
Tuscany International Drilling Inc. (
TSX: T.TID,
Stock Forum) fell 13.3% to 13 cents after the oil and gas industry services company announced its second quarter results ended June 30, 2013. Tuscany International reported a net loss of $9,741 during the second quarter compared to net income of $1,269 during the same period in 2012. For the three months ended June 30, 2013, the company had 2,343 revenue days from rig operations compared to 2,612 revenue days from rig operations during the three months ended June 30, 2012.