Small caps round-up: Bahamas Petroleum, Forte Energy, Sound Oil

Oil and gas exploration company Bahamas Petroleum is to raise in the region of £45.6m through a placing of shares at 18.75p each. The company said 110m new shares have definitely been placed, while a further 133.1m have been conditionally placed.The funds will be used to speed up the company's exploration programme, specifically £23m for 2D and 3D seismic acquisition and processing and £4m for a geochemical seabed sampling survey, with the remainder being used to working capital purposes.Uranium miner Forte Energy saw losses narrow to $1.15m in the half-year to end-December from $1.7m the year before. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of 2010 stood at $1.06m, down from $4.09m at the end of June 2010.Upstream oil and gas company Sound Oil hit a 52-week high Wednesday after its Italian subsidiary, Apennine Energy, signed a contract with Hydro Drilling International to supply a drilling rig for the Marciano-1ST well completion operation. Apennine Energy holds a 99% working interest in the Fonte San Damiano concession located in Basilicata which contains the Marciano discovery."This is pleasing news and confirmation that the Company is on track to meet its operations schedule and expectations of first production this year," said Gerry Orbell, chairman and chief executive of Sound Oil.