TRADING UPDATES: Cobra in line for earn-in; Argo agrees fleet swap

(Alliance News) - The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Monday and not separately reported by Alliance News:

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Argo Blockchain PLC - London-based cryptocurrency miner - Signs fleet swap agreement with Core Scientific Inc. Agreement exchanges Argo's Bitmain Antminer S19 series bitcoin mining fleet hosted at Core for S19J Pro bitcoin miners previously ordered by Core to be delivered directly to Argo's new Helios facility. "This fleet swap represents approximately 60% of Argo's total mining capacity and will reduce operational expenses for Argo as part of its ongoing transition to operating its own mining facilities," company says. Upon completion of the swap, Argo will no longer have any mining machines hosted at third party facilities.

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Clean Invest Africa PLC - investor in energy projects in Africa - Completes GBP100,000 placing to support growth of its wholly owned subsidiaries, CoalTech Ltd and Coal Agglomeration South Africa Ltd, and to provide limited working capital. Places 20.0 million shares at 0.5 pence each. Notes, for every two placing shares issued, one warrant will be granted, exercisable at 1.5p, valid for a period of three years. Adds: "Further, should the placees validly exercise the 1.5p warrants in full, these will be replaced by a further one warrant, exercisable at 3p, for every two placing shares, valid for three years from grant."

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CYBA PLC - UK-based cyber security-focused special acquisition company - Shareholders green light GBP6 million fundraise and acquisition of Narf Industries. As this counts as completion of reverse takeover, shares now readmitted to trading in London.

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Gfinity PLC - London-based e-sports and gaming - Raises GBP2.7 million from placing 216.0 million shares at 1.25 pence each. Notes proceeds will be used for working capital purposes.

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Accrol Group Holdings PLC - Blackburn, England-based private-label toilet roll maker - Settles with the vendor of Leicester Tissue Co, in which no sums are due to be paid or equity issued under the deferred consideration arrangements relating to the acquisition of LTC. Company in November acquired LTC Group, a UK-based tissue converter, for an enterprise value of up to GBP41.8 million. Chair Dan Wright says: "LTC has proven an extremely valuable addition to the Accrol manufacturing footprint. Its operations are now fully integrated within the wider Accrol business, allowing us to accommodate considerable growth and realise significant efficiencies and synergies across the group."

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Panthera Resources PLC - London-based gold exploration and development company with assets in Africa and India - Notes Diamond Fields Resources Inc to start drilling at the Labola project in the second quarter of 2022. "Drilling to date only covers a small part of the identified deposit with this next phase of drilling to focus on areas of known mineralization to expand the current mineral resource estimate," company adds. Project is owned and managed by Moydow Holdings Ltd. Panthera currently holds 40% stake in Moydow. Diamond Fields Resources has agreed to spend up to USD18 million on Labola.

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Union Jack Oil PLC - Bath, England-based oil and gas company with operations across the UK - Notes application to extend the existing planning to drill the North Kelsey-1 exploration well was refused at meeting of the Lincolnshire County Council Planning Committee. Union Jack holds a 50% economic interest in PEDL241 which contains the North Kelsey-1 well site. AIM-listed Egdon Resources PLC holds remaining 50%. Union Jack Chair David Bramhill says: "A rather odd and disturbing decision taking into consideration current world events and the clear need for the UK to secure new indigenous energy supplies." Egdon says decision was "disappointing". Has appealed decision.

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Cobra Resources PLC - Wudinna gold project in South Australia - Says planned 2022 work programme is fully funded and "focuses on rapidly expanding" its rare earths discovery. Chief Executive Rupert Verco says: "We are pursuing a three-pronged strategy of gold, rare earths, and iron oxide copper gold, with highly encouraging indicators across all three. This intense period of activity is also expected to see Cobra achieve its 75% earn-in to the Wudinna project milestone in Q3 2022." Starts accelerated definition works to test the extent of rare earth element mineralisation proximal to existing gold occurrences.

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Mkango Resources Ltd - Vancouver-based mineral exploration and development company - Says 100%-owned subsidiary, Mkango UK, agrees to collaborate with B&W Group, EMR, GKN Automotive, HyProMag, Jaguar Land Rover and UoB in a GBP3.4 million magnet recycling project. Notes 71% of project will be funded by UK Research & Innovation. Mkango also holds a 42% interest in project partner, HyProMag. Project named Scream. Chief Executive William Dawes says: "We are very excited about this innovative project and the opportunity to develop chemical processing of NdFeB magnet scrap in the UK alongside supporting the scale up of the HPMS technology via our strategic interest in HyProMag. We envisage that the recycling of rare earth magnets will play a key role in the development of robust supply chains to catalyse and support growth in the electric vehicle sector and in other clean technologies."

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Technology Minerals PLC - London-based company specialising in battery metals - "Pleased" with initial results from a due diligence lithogeochemical characterisation sampling survey at its 100% owned Aramo copper-cobalt-nickel project in Asturias, NW Spain. "In the coming months we plan to expand our exploration campaign which will help us continue to gain a better understanding the full potential of the project. The Asturmet project forms part of our wider strategy to move forward and advance multiple exploration campaigns across our portfolio of mineral resource projects focused on cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese, and lithium," Chief Executive Alex Stanbury says.

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Arrow Exploration Corp - Calgary, Canada-based oil and gas company - Expects RCE-2 well, at the Rio Cravo Este field in Colombia, to spud in late-March. Adds: "Drilling of the RCE-2 well is expected to take approximately two weeks, followed by completion and testing. Depending on the number of zones encountered in the well bore, testing is expected to take approximately five days per zone."

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Westmount Energy Ltd - Jersey-headquartered investor in oil and gas industries - Notes Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas Ltd earlier on Monday is progressing an acquisition to further its interests in Guyana. The Toronto-based oil and gas exploration company signed a commercially-binding term sheet for a USD52 million cashless acquisition of 100% of JHI Associates Inc, a Guyana-focused deepwater exploration company. The acquisition includes JHI's 18% working interest in the Canje Block, offshore Guyana, and its capital balance of a minimum of USD15 million. JHI shareholders would receive 1.2 new Eco shares for each JHI share held for around 127 million new shares, around 34% of Eco's enlarged share capital. Westmount holds 7.2% interest in JHI.

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Conroy Gold & Natural Resources PLC - Dublin-based gold exploration and development company focused on Ireland and Finland - Starts step-out drilling programme on the Clontibret gold target in Ireland, in conjunction with its joint venture partner Demir Export. Programme to further explore and to develop the new district scale gold trend discovered by Conroy Gold along the Longford-Down Massif in Ireland. Initial programme will comprise eight drill holes totalling about 3,000 metres and is anticipated to commence in late April.

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By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com

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