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Victoria Oil & Gas, Mediterranean Oil & Gas, Max Petroleum, Atlantic Coal, Red Rock Resources, European Nickel news briefs

By Fox-Davies Capital

Victoria Oil & Gas announced that Well La-106 was spudded on 6 February 2010 at its Logbaba gas and condensate project in Douala, Cameroon. La-106 is the second well to be drilled by VOG at Logbaba and will twin Well La-101, which was drilled by Elf in 1954. The proposed total depth is approximately 8,700ft and drilling is anticipated to take around 60 days. While La-106 is being drilled, testing of the gas-bearing zones of La-105 will be undertaken and this testing is expected to commence in February.

Comment: La-106 was spudded on time and operations at Logbaba seem to be running smoothly now. Testing of La-105 will start while La-106 is being drilled and not wait for the drilling to be completed, which should speed up the reserves assessment update. La-106 should also now be drilled on the sweet spot unravelled by the passive seismic survey and should penetrate better reservoir that any of the wells drilled previously on Logbaba. If this is the case then the prospect to the North of Logbaba would be materially de-risked and become the next drilling target.

Mediterranean Oil & Gas announced an increase in reserves at its Ombrina Mare field in the central Adriatic. 2P reserves have doubled and now stand at 40mmbbls, including an increase in 1P reserves to 12mmbbls.

Max Petroleum announced that the Company has received approval from the relevant Kazakhstan authority for its 2010 work programme for the Astrakhanskiy Licence, which includes the drilling of the first exploration well in 2010.

Comment: The authorities have waived the 2009 commitment well and approved the 2010 programme submitted by the Company. This removes a major uncertainty and is an important step towards to be able to farm-out the licence. The farm-out is now likely to progress.
Mining Corporate News

Atlantic Coal announced that it has completed a placing of 80,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.07 pence each in the Company at a price of 0.5p per share, raising ?400,000 for the Company. The net proceeds of the Placing, which has been arranged by Allenby Capital Limited, will be used by the Company for general working capital purposes. The Placing Shares will represent 5.5% of the Company's enlarged issued ordinary share capital. The total enlarged issued share capital of Atlantic following Admission will be 1,465,846,350 ordinary shares in the Company.

Red Rock Resources announced that YA Global Master SPV, LTD., which is advised by Yorkville Advisors LLC, has subscribed for 8,691,020 ordinary shares of 0.1 pence each in the Company under the terms of the Standby Equity Distribution Agreement between Red Rock and YA Global, announced on 1 May 2009, at a price of 1.3807354 pence per Ordinary Share. The proceeds of the subscription are ?120,000 before expenses, conditional on the Ordinary Shares being admitted to trading on AIM. Following the issue of the Shares the Company’s total issued ordinary share capital will be 575,044,162 ordinary shares of 0.1p.

European Nickel announced that further to the announcement of 2 February 2010 of its placing to raise US$19.4M, European Nickel PLC, confirms that, on 8 February 2010, the Company repaid the US$5M loan provided by Endeavour Financial Corporation to the Company as previously announced on 27 July 2009 and as increased on 8 December 2009. The Company has also applied for a further 1,345,571 new ordinary shares to be admitted to trading on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange plc and trading is expected to start at 8.00 a.m. on Friday, 12 February 2010.  As previously announced, these shares will be issued to Endeavour in lieu of interest on the loan facility provided to the Company.  The Endeavour Shares will be issued credited as fully paid and will rank pari passu with the existing ordinary shares in the capital of the Company, including the right to receive all  dividends and other distributions declared, made or paid on or in respect of such shares after the date of issue of the

Endeavour Shares. Following the issue of the Endeavour Shares and the 76,300,000 ordinary shares issued on 8 February 2010 under the first tranche of the Placing, the issued ordinary share capital of the Company as of 8.00 a.m. on 12 February 2010 will be 548,373,428 shares, each having equal voting rights and which represents the total number of voting rights in the Company.