Resources round-up: Roxi, Matra, Alexander

Kazakhstan-focused Roxi Petroleum saw its shares dive after it revealed that well NK-10 in its Galaz contract area has a high water content with only minor gas and oil film shows. The well, which was drilled late last year, will now be plugged and abandoned. The exploration and appraisal work being carried out on the NW Konys field will continue with production from the Galaz contract area currently running at the rate of 160 barrels of oil per day, the firm said.

Matra Petroleum, an oil and gas company, has entered into an agreement with Maxin Barskiy, under which he will become a strategic investor and a non-executive director of the company, enabling the company to made a number of new project acquisitions. Barskiy will subscribe for a placing of 575m new ordinary shares at 0.8p per share, raising £4.6m before expenses. Following the placing he will hold about 29.8% of the company. The agreement is subject to shareholder approval.

Forte Energy, an international uranium company, has completed the first stage of its 63 hole drilling programme at the A238 prospect in Mauritania, resulting in a 70% increase in the resource total there. The resource total now stands at 45.2m tonnes. Mark Reilly, Managing Director,said: "These excellent results demonstrate that Forte Energy is on track to increase its resource base from the recent drilling campaigns in Mauritania and Guinea. Following the completion of the resource upgrade we look forward to initiating further studies on both A238 and Firawa."

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Alexander Mining has reported good progress on the test work for the recovery of copper from samples given by Altona Mining from the Blackard deposit in Australia. Alexander agreed to conduct the tests for Altona at the end of last year. The deposit currently has a resource of 46.3m tonnes at 0.63% copper (291,000 tonnes contained copper), of which around 60% is in what is called the native copper mineralisation zone, which is below the oxide ore zone.