Commodities

That Was The Week That Was … In Australia
The ASX

That Was The Week That Was … In Australia

5 mins. to read

By Our Man in Oz Minews. Good morning Australia, you seem to have had quite a week with gold stocks leading the way once again. Oz. It was a good week for gold, but not for much else. Iron ore stocks lost much of their hard-won gains and copper stocks were hit hard by the…

ASX – listed Pura Vida Energy gears up to drill its first potentially high impact and company making well in Moroccan towards the end of 2015
Pura Vida's drilling target offshore Morocco

ASX – listed Pura Vida Energy gears up to drill its first potentially high impact and company making well in Moroccan towards the end of 2015

3 mins. to read

By Stewart Dalby Pura Vida Energy is not one of those start-ups which adopts a model of finding some production to generate enough cash flow to keep the lights on, as they say. Nor has it decided, for the moment to acquire development opportunities to spread risk before it goes for the big one with…

Poweralternatives: Maple Energy’s Peruvian ethanol ambitions felled by drought, debt and downtime
Maple Energy's ethanol plant in Peru

Poweralternatives: Maple Energy’s Peruvian ethanol ambitions felled by drought, debt and downtime

2 mins. to read

By Amy McLellan E&P companies may be reeling from the rout in the oil price but biofuel producers are also feeling the pain as greener fuels struggle to compete with US$50 oil. Even before the price slump, however, some biofuel producers were on the ropes. AIM-quoted Maple Energy, for example, was last year hit hard…

Market Overview: It has been another week of gloom and doom in oil markets with further price falls predicted
Eithne Treanor

Market Overview: It has been another week of gloom and doom in oil markets with further price falls predicted

8 mins. to read

By Eithne Treanor It was another week of doom and gloom on the oil market, but the International Energy Agency hinted that the market was in a rebalancing phase and OPEC called for stronger cooperation. The oil price got a slight and temporary reprieve late this week when prices climbed more than half a dollar.…

Tullow Oil tallies record write-offs and cuts exploration spend as it focuses on low cost production in West Africa
Tullow CEO Aidan Heavy

Tullow Oil tallies record write-offs and cuts exploration spend as it focuses on low cost production in West Africa

3 mins. to read

By Amy McLellan, The oil price is continuing to inflict pain across the sector, with even the biggest companies pulling projects, shedding jobs and cutting back on expenditure. FTSE100 company Tullow Oil on Thursday announced US$2.7 billion of pre-tax write-offs and impairments and slashed 2015 spending plans from US$1 billion at the start of 2014…

Taipan Resources spuds Badada-1 in Kenya’s Anza Basin
Taipan in Kenya

Taipan Resources spuds Badada-1 in Kenya’s Anza Basin

2 mins. to read

By Amy McLellan The highly anticipated Badada-1 wildcat in Block 2B in Kenya’s Anza Basin has spudded, a potential play-opener that will be closely watched by shareholders in Canada’s Taipan Resources and AIM-quoted Tower Resources.   Legal wrangles had threatened to delay the drill in November but, as predicted by the parties involved, an injunction was…

George Ogilvie Has Got Kirkland Lake Gold Generating Cash Again, But $120 Million Of Debt Remains Outstanding
George Ogilvie

George Ogilvie Has Got Kirkland Lake Gold Generating Cash Again, But $120 Million Of Debt Remains Outstanding

4 mins. to read

By Alastair Ford It’s been an interesting 12 months for George Ogilvie. George was appointed chief executive of Kirkland Lake Gold back in December 2013, just as the gold price was bottoming out at US$1,200 per ounce after a precipitous fall from US$1,800. That fall, following repeated delays to the planned expansion programme at the…

Sound Oil walks from Antrim deal as oil price continues to sink
Sound CEO James Parsons

Sound Oil walks from Antrim deal as oil price continues to sink

2 mins. to read

By Amy McLellan With the oil price still in free-fall, oil companies are weighing their options carefully as what looked a steal just six weeks ago at US$70 per barrel now looks far less compelling as the price sinks below US$50. As a result, deals are being pulled and projects iced as companies wait for…