Small caps round-up: Thor Mining, Goldplat, Tethys

Gold-focused firm Thor Mining has increased the resource estimate for the Molyhil tungsten and molybdenum project in Australia's Northern Territory by a quarter.

Overall tonnage rose to 4.7 million tonnes, with contained tungsten increasing by 10% and molybdenum leaping by 46%. The firm now plans to update the feasibility study due in February 2012, and to confirm capital and operating cost changes.

Executive Chairman Mick Billing said: "The Molyhil story continues to get better and better. The recently announced improvement in recovery has positively impacted on the profitability and life of Molyhil, while this increase in the resource estimate provides further potential to extend the life of the mining operation. In particular the very high tungsten grades close to surface give us confidence in an early pay-back on the investment."

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Sticking with the gold miners, AIM-quoted gold producer Goldplat expects to report a "significant" increase in operating profit compared to the six months ended 2011 after gold recovery operations performed well. The Ghana gold recovery operation in particular is performing ahead of management expectations, while total gold production for the full year 2012 is expected to exceed full year 2011 production of 28,185oz.

Chief Executive Officer Demetri Manolis said: "We are a highly cash generative and profitable gold production company and I am delighted to report that our two gold recovery operations in South Africa and Ghana have performed strongly for the first half of the trading year and expect to see this trend continue for the second half of the year."

Oil exploration and production firm Tethys Petroleum has announced the official inauguration of its Aral Oil Terminal (AOT), a new oil storage and rail loading facility for oil shipments from the company's Doris oilfield into the Kazakh rail system. The AOT is located about 230 kilometres from the Doris oil field, significantly reducing the distance oil is currently trucked by road from the field. The opening of AOT will allow the company to initially double production to around 4,000 barrels of oil per day due to a halving of the road trucking distance.

The AOT is owned and operated jointly through a 50/50 joint venture by Tethys and its Kazakh oil trading partner's company, Olisol Investment. First commercial shipments through the AOT are expected in February of this year, the firm said.