Companies: HER    MANA    MOG    PDL    VML   

As gold and platinum test new highs and brokers, including Cenkos Securities, line up New Year gold and other floats, new issue activity remains brisk, though presumably this cannot last for ever

Williams de Broe wants £43 million for Denver-based Direct Petroleum, a potentially interesting outfit with hefty oil and gas concessions in Morocco and Bulgaria, a successful heavyweight management team and new ‘acoustic’ exploration technology. It could go well in today’s climate.

Several uranium plays have caught a ‘morning after’ speculative headache, with AIM-quoted Vane Minerals half its March price at 13.25p despite acquiring the North Wash uranium property in Utah, containing an estimated 150,000lb resource. Peru-focused copper play Monterrico Metals has shed 45p to 497p since we suggested partial profit-taking in September, though well up from our early 2003 mention at 79p, and could have run out of steam in the short term.

High hopes in the Med
AIM newcomer Mediterranean Oil & Gas (MOG) has risen to 123p since Growth Company Investor commended its £1 float on 11 November. Chaired by Australian entrepreneur David Lenigas and run by experienced oilman Giovanni Catalano, the company operates in and around Italy and Malta in the Mediterranean sea where energy prospects are being grabbed rapidly in a new rush.

MOG has 100 per cent of Italy’s offshore Ombrina Mare discovery, with a claimed estimate of 89 million likely barrels in place and several other promising participations. But Catalano argues the company’s Block 7 prospect offshore Malta could be a ‘company maker’, with an estimated resource of between 103 and 430 million barrels.

Farm-in deals on some prospects could be clinched over the coming month or two. If Catalano’s hopes are borne out, the shares should have more mileage.

Silver dollars in Chile
Keith Liddell, Australian former managing director of Aquarius Platinum, is on the board of Down Under-based AIM counter Herencia Resources, which is pursing silver prospects in South America. With £800,000 in the bank, the company, run by Aussie entrepreneur Anthony Barton, has been in the process of using 150,000 of its shares (now a lowly 1.5p) to buy Tarapaca Resources of Bermuda.

Tarapaca owns the Iquique and Paguanta silver prospects in Chile, where Barton claims to see exciting possibilities. Silver is strong at $8 an ounce – not, he insists, because of metal market operations a la Bunker Hunt, but because of a shrinking US stockpile.

Herencia looks high-risk, but it could repay a strong-nerved punt.

Petra and Mano in ‘amicable’ failure
A shareholders' revolt has thwarted Petra Diamonds' plans to acquire Mano River Resources in a £35 million share deal.

In a terse statement, Petra Diamonds and Mano River cofirmed their merger, which would have created a £145 million exploration and mining group focused on Angola and West Africa, is not going ahead. The two companies insist the decision is ‘amicable’ and they will continue with their joint diamond venture at Kono in Sierra Leone.

Sources close to the negotiations say that the merger plan, originally devised by Petra boss Adonis Pouroulis and Mano chairman Guy Pas, upset certain institutional holders in both companies who argued Petra's Diamond interests in Angola diluted Mano's gold interests and vice versa.

With Petra's shares 0.75p off at 64p and Mano's down 0.5p at 9.75p, it is expected that Mano will now pay more attention to its iron ore prospects in Liberia. Keep an eye on both.