Valiant Petroleum has terminated its contract with Awilco Drilling, following technical downtime, which occurred as a result of the suspension of drilling operations on the Timon exploration well in the UK North Sea, in which Valiant holds a 10 per cent stake. The well has been suspended for re-entry and the licence partners are currently investigating alternative rig options to complete drilling of the Timon prospect.

Mining firm Patagonia Gold has raised £8.0m through the placing of around 5.77m shares and a subscription of around 26.23m shares, both at 25p each. The new shares represent around 4.3% of the enlarged issued share capital. The proceeds of the placement will be used to fund the development expenditure for the Lomada de Leiva gold production project, continuing exploration expenditure on the Cap-Oeste project in Argentina and to provide general working capital for the company.

Exploration and development company Stratex International has recovered high-grade samples from the main Pandora epithermal gold vein in East Africa and an adjacent structure in the Oklila Exclusive Exploration Licence in the Republic of Djibouti. The samples on the main Pandora vein included 2.07g per ton gold over 17.90 metres and 8.55g per ton gold over 1.9 metres. An "excellent" continuity of gold grades has now be demonstrated over what is a more than 2,300 metre strike on the vein. The adjacent structure has returned grades of 65.70g/t gold. Drilling is now aimed for the third quarter of 2012, where preparation is already underway.

SacOil's appeal against a $2.0m a claim made by Identiguard International has been upheld, and South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal dismisses Identiguard's claim. The claims were made against a 50%-owned subsidiary of SacOil, and a verdict in favour of Identiguard was made in May 2011. The appeal was heard in May 2012, where the verdict was overturned and costs were awarded to SacOil.

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