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CAZA Oil & Gas, Tullow Oil, PetroLatina, KEFI Minerals, Central Rand Gold, Gem Diamonds Ltd news briefs

By Fox-Davies Capital

CAZA Oil & Gas announced an operational update on its activities in the Abo/Wolfcamp horizontal oil play in New Mexico, USA where it has now drilled four wells. The Bada Bing 23 State #1, the third well in the program, was drilled to a total measured depth of 12,835ft with a horizontal leg of 4,129ft. The well encountered Abo/Wolfcamp dolomitic and limestone formations and a multi-stage fracture stimulation was completed on 23 December 2009. The well continues to flow back completion fluid, but at this stage no hydrocarbons have been evident in the fluid recovered. The fourth well in the Abo/Wolfcamp horizontal play, Moore Cowbell 27 State #1, has been drilled to a total measured depth of 10,083ft with a horizontal leg of 1,197ft. Although core data indicates a 14ft interval in the Abo zone from 8,679-8,693ft to be pay, the horizontal leg of the well did not encounter any producible reservoir zones. Caza and its partner Wise Oil No. 8, Ltd. are planning a vertical completion within the Abo zone. The first two wells, the Moore Bailout 11 State #1 and Lucky Penny 10 State #1 wells continue to produce at rates of approximately 20bopd.

Tullow Oil announced that the Kasamene-2 appraisal well, located in the Butiaba region of Uganda Block 2, has encountered 39m of net oil pay and 8m of net gas pay within a 132m gross interval. The well was drilled to a total depth of 866m. Well and seismic data indicates the reservoir sands intersected in the Kasamene-2 well are in pressure communication with those at Kasamene-1, which flowed at over 3,500bopd in March 2009. Pressure data has confirmed a single continuous oil column in excess of 70m and a gas column of over 20m. The well will now be suspended as a future producer and this will form Phase 1 of the Albertine Rift Development.

PetroLatina announced the appointment of Evolution Securities Limited as Joint Broker, effective immediately. Strand Hanson Limited remains the Company's Nominated Advisor and Joint Broker.

KEFI Minerals (Speculative BUY) announced it has successfully placed a further 9,375,000 ordinary shares of 1p each ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 1.6 pence per Ordinary Share to raise ?150,000 before expenses, subject to receipt of the placing funds and admission of the Placing Shares to trading on AIM. This Placing, along with the funding announced on 8th January at the same price per share, draws to a conclusion Kefi Mineral's current financing efforts and leaves the Company in a solid financial position. All funds that have been raised during this process will be used to fund on-going strategic initiatives and further exploratory work on its highly prospective exploration areas in Turkey and Saudi Arabia where KEFI Minerals is operator of exploration joint ventures.

Comment: We retain our Speculative Buy recommendation on KEFI Minerals. Peter Rose +44 (0)2079365246.

Central Rand Gold announced that it has placed a total of 24,691,964 new ordinary shares of 1p each in the capital of the Company at a price of 15p per Placing Share  to raise ?3.7M (US$6.0M). The Placing has been supported by the Directors and senior management and certain existing substantial shareholders. 23,781,964 Placing Shares have been placed using a cash box structure with existing investors and 910,000 Placing Shares have been placed with Directors and senior management of the Company. The Placing Shares represent 9.99 per cent of CRG's existing issued ordinary share capital and 9.09 per cent of the issued share capital of the Company as enlarged by the Placing. The Placing price of 15p per share represents a discount of 4.76 per cent to the closing mid-price on 21 January 2010 of 15.75p per share. The Placing has been underwritten by Evolution Securities Limited.

Gem Diamonds Ltd announced a trading update for the period from 1 October 2009 to 31 December 2009. Q4 2009 saw strong rough diamond prices; especially for larger top quality, top colour diamonds and showed an improvement over Q3 200. Let?eng Diamonds averaged US$1,894 per carat in Q4 2009 (US$1,710 per carat in Q3 2009) with the December 2009 tender achieving US$2,070 per carat. A 35.51ct D colour Type IIa Let?eng diamond sold for US$51,253 per carat. In Q4 2009 Let?eng sold 178 individual rough diamonds, each larger than 10.8 carats. In Q4 2009 Kimberley’s fancy yellow production averaged US$2,500 per carat. Kimberley Diamonds signed a long term agreement to sell its fancy yellow diamonds to a subsidiary of Tiffany & Co. thereby assuring it of a long term market price and revenue stream and allowing Kimberley’s fancy yellow diamonds to benefit from Tiffany’s impressive global marketing reach. Kimberley’s Ellendale Mine continued to exceed planned targets with respect to tonnages mined, ore treated and carats recovered.