RNS Hotlist March 1: Alkemy, Bradda, Cadence, Canadian, Contango, Harland, Immotion, Mobile Tornado, UKOG, Upland, ValiRx

Contango (CGO), the London listed natural resource development company, advised that construction of a small-scale coke battery has been completed at the Lubu Coal Project in Zimbabwe. The pilot coke plant has been constructed to provide on-site capability to manufacture coke from washed coking coal produced at Lubu for testing by future offtake partners and for the company's internal studies and quality control. The ultimate coke batteries to be installed at Lubu for future production and sales will be considerably larger and a different specification.

Comment: Holders of CGO will be pleased that their company is continuing to cross off decent milestones, especially given the importance attached to the high margin coke business at Lubu.

Bradda Head Lithium (BHL), the North America-focused lithium development group, announced that an updated claims map has been uploaded to the company website following the conclusion of mediation between the company and Arizona Lithium. Bradda Head Lithium now holds approximately 46km2 of sedimentary claims in Arizona.

Comment: It may be the case that at least in terms of sentiment towards the company, the settlement with Arizona, may be a positive for BHL over the near term given that it has been strangely muted of late.

Alkemy Capital Investments (ALK) and its wholly-owned subsidiary Tees Valley Lithium Limited provide an update on Recharge Industries Pty Ltd's acquisition of Britishvolt. ALK said it was delighted that Recharge Industries has now successfully concluded the purchase of Britishvolt, a project of significant national importance and one that is critical for establishing the UK's battery cell supply chain. It looks forward to working with Recharge and Britishvolt on playing its part in transitioning the UK to a low-carbon and low-emissions future through the development of onshore UK facilities in the EV and battery cell supply chain.

Comment: It would appear that there has been a silver lining for Alkemy as far as the Britishvolt affair, and it will be interesting to see how far this can be taken.

Cadence Minerals (KDNC) provided an update on the progress of three of its investments. The company said its current public and private investments have continued to perform delivering a unrealised return of approximately 172% and our listed investments have delivered a total return (realised and unrealised) of 328%. The company said its confidence in Amapa continues to grow thanks to a potential further increase in the overall iron ore resource, improvements to the port and prospects for restarting iron ore shipments in the coming months.

Comment: Given all the progress KDNC has made over the past year, especially in terms of its return on its investments, it seems rather harsh that the share price is less than half of what it was at the beginning of 2022.

Immotion (IMMO) is pleased to announce the completion of the sale of LBE, comprising Immotion Studios Limited, Immotion VR Limited and C.2K Entertainment Inc., to LBE BidCo, Inc. for $25,119,739.  The sale proceeds comprise of cash of $23,869,739 and a loan note repayable 12 months following Completion in the principal amount of $1,250,000. IMMO said it was in the early stages of exploring an acquisition opportunity.

Comment: We look forward to seeing what Immotion will do with all its recent gains, as far as its next acquisition. The market cap remains at only £15m.

Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL), an international oil and gas company, with production and development operations focused in Converse and Natrona Counties, Wyoming, USA, is pleased to announce that its operating affiliate, COPL America, has received a covenant waiver from its senior lender and provided an operations and oil production update. The company said this has been a difficult winter in Wyoming and western North America in general.

Comment: Followers of the company may have to allow the dust to settle after the record weather conditions in the USA, before passing final judgement on its fundamental position.

Mobile Tornado (MBT) announced a subscription for 25,000,000 new ordinary shares of 2 pence each, representing approximately 6.6 per cent. of the existing issued ordinary share capital of the company at a price of 2 pence per Subscription Share to raise approximately £500,000. The company also announces the capitalisation of £259,490 of indebtedness owed by the company to InTechnology plc into new shares. The company said since it announced the Board changes on 9 January 2023, the business has moved quickly to scale up its sales and business development operation and is now actively engaged with a number of potential new partners and customers.

Comment: Shares of MBT have remained firm since January, and the prospect of active engagement with a number of parties should ensure further strength emerges. 

Upland Resources (UPL) announce that through its joint venture partner in Sarawak Upland Big Oil Sdn Bhd have, together with PETROS, it has successfully conducted geological fieldwork on the 16th to 24th February 2023 as part of the scope of works for Block SK334 Onshore Sarawak Joint Technical Study (JTS). The company said preliminary findings from the geological field work study have been positive, Upland notes within Block SK334 a number of areas of specific interest with analogous geological configuration and reservoir/trap/seal combinations as Brunei's nearby Belait formation which is host to a number of proven oil and gas discoveries and oilfields.

Comment: The company continues to build on recent funding news with fresh data regarding Sarawak.

ValiRx (VAL), a life science company, announced the incorporation of Inaphaea BioLabs Limited as a new wholly owned subsidiary of the company and the cornerstone of ValiRx's translational Contract Research Organisation. The company said it was pleased to share this news about the formation of Inaphaea; the first step of our longer term ambition to create the unique tCRO service offering for early stage drug development.  Over the next few weeks, it is intended to transfer its own projects into the Iaphaea lab to continue their progress.

Comment: It would appear that there has been more going on at ValiRx than met the eye. This may be the reason of the recent bear trap below 10p for the shares, and could provide some near term improvement in sentiment towards the company.

Harland & Wolff Group (HARL), the UK-quoted company focused on strategic infrastructure projects and physical asset lifecycle management, is pleased to provide a business update and management outlook for financial year 2023 ("FY23") and financial year 2024 ("FY24"). The company said The Harland and Wolff machine is really starting to hum and our ability to operate flexibly across multiple facilities will become increasingly important as an industry differentiator as our workload expands. We look forward to the future with increasing confidence.

Comment: The company is perhaps quite right to be waxing lyrical in terms of its machine starting to hum, perhaps like the guitar in Cracklin' Rosie.  We await the next leg of the share price doing the same thing.

UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) announce that the Resan JV (UKOG 50% non-operated interest) having secured a suitable small rig to drill the new Pinarova-1 shallow oil exploration well, now expects to commence site construction within the next 7-10 days. Site construction is expected to take approximately 14-21 days and, consequently, given no weather-related construction delays, drilling to a total depth of around 500-550m is expected to commence directly after site completion towards the end of March to early April 2023. The Pinarova-1 campaign is expected to take up to 28 days to deliver a well completed for future oil production. The company said "Pinarova's prospectivity, potential success case oil volumes and modest drilling costs make it an attractive stand-alone project that could, in the success case, deliver oil production in H1 2023.

Comment: It is pleasing that UKOG obviously has another decent string to its bow, in terms of its portfolio, something that the market has not really given the company credit for.