SMALL CAP MOVERS: Explorers Bradda Head and Helium One surge

Shares in Bradda Head grew by a third this week after the company hired Terravision Exploration to conduct geophysical programmes across three lithium projects in Arizona.

Terravision will shoot ground-penetrating radar (GPR), referred to as ‘GPRplus’, at Bradda’s Burro Creek, Wikieup and San Domingo projects.

The GPR work will assist in upcoming exploration efforts by optimising drill plans, to avoid unnecessary drilling meterage and ultimately to accelerate the overall programme.

Explorers Helium One and Bradda Head both surged this week

Elsewhere in the resource sector, Helium One Global rallied 27 per cent to 15.6p as it got into a Robert the Bruce vibe.

With the rapid spudding of the Tai-2 well the explorer is not jumping to Plan B, it’s repeating Plan A.

The company began drilling Tai-2 just over a week since the non-result of Tai-1 disappointed the firm’s retail investor base that has bought up the shares strongly in the months following its AIM market float in December.

Tai-2 aims to test the same targets that provided evidence of a helium system in Tai-1 but could not be evaluated properly due to poor hole conditions.

It is located only 20 metres from Tai-1 and is being drilled from the same drill pad, which saves costs and allows a quick turnaround.

Shareholders in 88 Energy might, perhaps, draw encouragement from Helium One’s experience.

A year ago 88 Energy’s shares were languishing at 0.27p and now they are trading at 1.8p but that is after a fall of 24 per cent this week as the post-well evaluation of targets at Merlin-1 in Alaska failed to excite the market.

The company said that well evaluation successfully demonstrated the presence of oil in the N20 and N18 targets, and additionally shows that a new target referred to as N19 was also penetrated in the first well.

A total of 41 feet of net pay was encountered by the well, it added.

The company is now planning an appraisal well for the Merlin project, after latest analysis of this year’s well results confirmed the presence of light oil.

SDX Energy, down 23 per cent at 11.75p, was another oiler in the casualty ward in the wake of drilling news.

The HA-1X exploration well on the Hanut prospect spudded on 4 August and reached the target depth of 6,000ft on 17 August, SDX told investors.

The primary target for HA-1X was the Basal Kafr El Sheikh sand at about 5,200ft.

The well, however, found that the Basal Kafr El Sheikh sand had been eroded at this location.

While drilling to target depth, good quality sands were found at the Qawasim level; however they were not charged with gas.

Diamond finds: Bluerock this week announced the discovery of a 14.3 carat stone

Novacyt, the clinical diagnostics company, is the definition of a volatile stock and it was on the move again this week, rising 35 per cent to 402.05p after its half-year update.

That’s still less than half its 12-month high of 1.194p set in October 2020 but four times its pre-pandemic level.

Novacyt’s revenue for the first half of 2021 increased over 50 per cent to £94.7million, compared to £63.3million for the first half of 2020.

Of this total revenue, £54million came from a mixture of overseas sales and a growing UK private testing market, leading to non-DHSC (Department of Health and Social Care) revenue growing 20 per cent year-on-year.

Much of the excitement over Novacyt shares has been caused by its Covid-19 tests and there was more news on that front with Primerdesign, a wholly owned subsidiary of Novacyt, winning a new contract under the PHE National Microbiology Framework, effective immediately, for the supply of PROmate Covid-19 tests to the NHS.

Diamonds are forever but finding the sparkling rocks is tricky although this week Bluerock made it look easy.

At the beginning of the week it said it discovered a 58.6 carat diamond at the Kareevlei mine in South Africa, just one week on from a 21.56 carat diamond find from the same mine.

Then, on Thursday, it announced the discovery of a 14.3 carat stone, the third high quality large stone in August to date.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk