AfriTin Mining Ltd (LON:ATM) gained as it signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with MRI Trading for an artisanal buying operation for tin concentrate in Namibia.
The two companies aim to explore the possibility of sourcing cassiterite concentrate from local artisanal miners to establish early cash flows, AfriTin said.
AfriTin and MRI will also look at establishing a buying station for the analysis of the material offered by artisanal miners.
MRI will provide funding of up to US$200,000 under the MoU to set up the buying station. AfriTin will receive 50% of the net profits received by MRI.
Shares rose 7% to 3.05p.
Aerospace services company Strat Aero PLC (LON:AERO) shares dipped as said it signed a deal to buy a 37% stake in Gyrometric Systems for ?250,000.
Shares fell 4% to 0.06p.
Gyrometric has developed technology for collecting, analysing and monitoring digital data from rotating shafts to produce predictions of potential mechanical failures. The technology, which uses proprietary software and artificial Intelligence, has used for monitoring marine propulsion systems, machine tools and wind turbines.
Gyrometric reported an underlying loss of ?31,000 for the year to 31 December 2017.
EKF Diagnostics Holdings PLC said the US Food and Drug Administration has approved its hand-held reagent-free hemoglobin analyser for use in point of care, sending its shares up 6% to 32p.
The point of care medical devices firm said the analyser, DiaSpect Tm, was granted clearance and a waiver under the FDA's clinical laboratory improvement amendments.
Chief executive Julian Baines said: "The FDA approval of DiaSpect Tm is part of our overall strategy to widen the range of regulatory approvals for our existing product range and to drive sales growth for these products across additional geographies.
"The US market is a key target for our DiaSpect Tm product, where we see a significant need for an easy to use, accurate and portable haemoglobin measurement system that can deliver laboratory quality results to patients in the clinic within seconds," said Chief Executive Officer Julian Baines."
DiaSpect Tm measures hemoglobin, a protein molecule in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body's tissue.
Salt Lake Potash Limited (LON:SO4) shares rose 5% to 31.7p after announcing it has executed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi Australia Ltd for the first offtake agreement for the Goldfields Salt Lakes Project in Western Australia.
The agreement will provide Mitsubishi with sales and offtake rights for up to 50% of the sulphate of potash (SOP) production from a demonstration plant at the Goldfields project for distribution into Asia and Oceania and potentially other markets.
Salt Lake Potash is completing studies for construction of a demonstration plant that will produce up to 50,000 tonnes per annum of high quality SOP. It plans to distribute production through a small number of global distribution partnerships.
Mitsubishi Australia is a wholly-owned trading and investment subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation that operates across a number of sectors including industrial finance, energy, metals, machinery and chemicals.
Nakama Group PLC (LON:NAK) shares fell more than 6% to 1.05p after the recruitment company announced the resignation of its chief financial officer and warned that its Australian subsidiaries may struggle to pay A$700,000 in taxes owed in the country.
The taxes, due this month, include goods and services tax and pay as you go liabilities, which arose from the group's Australian trading operations between July 2016 and September 2017.
Nakama said the board is considering ways to fund the Australian subsidiaries in meeting the payment to the Australian Taxation Office. It is also looking at asking the ATO to give it more time to meet the payments.
Angus Watson, Nakama's CFO, has resigned with immediate effect.
Immedia Group PLC (LON:IME) was on the front foot after announcing it has signed an equipment installation deal with a contractor on behalf of an undisclosed major UK high street financial institution.
Shares rose 13% to 29p around noon.
The multi-media content supplier has landed the contract following a trial of its live broadcast services with a third party on behalf of a large UK financial institution.
Installation work at more than 450 branches will take place in the current financial year.
The company also had a contract with the financial institution for the production and delivery of live radio services for an "extended trial" period.
Shares in satellite company Avanti Communications Group PLC (LON:AVN) dropped more than 8% to 10p as it warned that it could default on its debt.
The company has proposed a debt for equity swap and an open offer for up to ?4.3mln worth of shares.
Avant owes a final payment of US$40mln on its loan with Orbital ATK Inc. to be paid at the earlier of completion of in-orbit testing or three months after the launch of the HYLAS 4 satellite.
The group said if a restructuring of its debt does not complete by April 30, it will default on its bond interest payable under the existing bond indentures.
The debt for equity swap and open offer are subject to approval by shareholders.
At the end of 2017, the company had about US$998mln of debts.
Kazera Global PLC (LON:KZG) shares rose 14% to 2.9p as it said investee company African Tantalum (Aftan) has sent its fifth shipment of high purity tantalum from the Namibia Tantalite mine to a US customer.
The company said the shipment reached grades of more than 40% purity.
Meanwhile, discussions are ongoing with a second potential customer who has confirmed that Aftan has passed its processing and product audit.
French Connection Group PLC (LON:FCCN) shares jumped after saying it is selling its 75% stake in clothing brand Toast Limited to Bestseller United for ?23.3mln.
The fashion retailer said the disposal will allow it to focus on its own brand in retail, wholesale and licensing businesses.
It will use the cash proceeds from the disposal for its turnaround and return to profitability as well as general corporate and working capital purposes.
In March, French Connection revealed it narrowed its annual loss before tax to ?2.3mln from ?5.3mln last year as it closed poor performing stores. The group reported a 0.5% decline in revenue at constant currency to ?154.0mln.
Shares rose 13.4% to 48.8p in morning trading.
TomCo Energy PLC (LON:TOM) shares rose 15.9% to 2p after the oil shale explorer said it has made progress in advancing its TurboShale business.
TurboShale is seeking to build on the successful so-called BART programme, which demonstrated that its radio frequency (RF) technology produced quality oil and achieved a low cost of production.
The business will undertake a field test of up to six months on the company's Holiday Block to demonstrate the commerciality of the RF technology. TomCo said it has identified "significant" cost savings.
The goal is to commercialise TomCo's oil shale leases through use of the RF technology.
Video games development services provider Keywords Studios PLC (LON:KWS) has hit the acquisition trail again, beefing up its music and audio offering. It has acquired Cord Worldwide and Laced Music from the Cutting Edge Group for ?4.5mln and Maximal Studio from its owners for up to ?,?500,000.
Directa Plus PLC (LON:DCTA) has completed the first phase of industrial field testing of Grafysorber, its graphene-based oil pollution treatment. Romanian group OMV Petrom said the quality of water improved using Grafysorber, which will now be tested on another contaminant.
Concepta PLC (LON:CPT) has achieved the certification necessary for manufacturing the myLotus fertility product at its facility in Doncaster. The AIM-listed firm said that ISO123485 certification allows the company to utilise the automated production lines recently installed at the Doncaster facility to begin manufacturing the diagnostic tests.
Bob Wigley, a non-executive director of Symphony Environmental Technologies PLC (LON:SYM) addressed the 2018 Economic and Social Council Partnership Forum last week on plastic pollution. Wigley noted that 11 countries have adopted oxo-biodegradable plastic technology, with the most recent convert being Saudi Arabia.
Solo Oil PLC (LON:SOLO) chairman Neil Ritson has described himself as "pleased" with the evident progress partner Aminex PLC (LON:AEX) is making in the preparations for an upcoming appraisal and exploration programme in the Ruvuma project area. Aminex, separately, this morning revealed that the Chikumbi-1 well (which was just renamed from Ntorya-3) will now be drilled deeper to test an additional exploration target.
Aminex PLC (LON:AEX) told investors it remains in "advanced discussions" with Zubar Corporation over a potential farm-out of the Ruvuma asset, including the Ntorya discovery and appraisal area, meanwhile, it also updates on present operations in Tanzania. As part of preparations for the next planned drill programme the company has agreed to a Tanzania government request to change the name of the proposed Ntorya-3 well which will now be referred to as Chikumbi-1.
Columbus Energy Resources PLC (LON:CERP) chairman Leo Koot said that production growth at the Goudron field, in Trinidad, is "not without its challenges" as the company updated investors on its operations in its first quarter. Despite technical challenges, the company described its production base as "solid" whilst reporting that peak production measured 627 barrels of oil per day - which exceeded a 'high case' target for 600 bopd in February - though overall the quarter's volumes were impacted by testing and monitoring work.
Sound Energy PLC (LON:SOU) confirmed that its divestment of Italian assets to Coro Energy PLC, previously named Saffron Energy, has this morning completed. As previously communicated, the Coro Energy consideration shares will be redistributed to Sound shareholders to hold directly. Shareholders on the record date of April 3 are entitled to the shares, which will be issued proportionately to their stake.
BlueRock Diamonds PLC (LON:BRD) saw grade and sales increases as it published results for the first quarter of 2018, while reiterating its guidance for the coming year. The AIM-listed, South Africa-focused diamond miner said grades from its Kareevlei diamond mine were 3.8 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht) for the first quarter, up from 1.92 cpht for the same period last year.
Frontier IP Group PLC (LON:FIPP) said it has agreed to acquire an increased stake in its portfolio company Fieldwork Robotics. The AIM-listed intellectual property investor said it had agreed to provide extra development and engineering support to Fieldwork in exchange for an increased stake in the company to 27.5% from 21%.
Halozyme Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:HALO) has told Abzena PLC (LON:ABZA) that it intends to stop using the latter's ThioBridge linker technology in its antibody-drug conjugate products. Nasdaq-listed Halozyme had been using ThioBridge in some of its ADCs, including HTI-1511 which had shown promise in treating various tumour types in pre-clinical trials.
Ariana Resources PLC (LON:AAU) has boosted its resource base at the Tavsan project in Turkey to 3.98ml tonnes grading 1.32 grams per tonne gold. There's also 4.46 grams per tonne silver. That gives a total of 168,900 ounces of gold and 571,000 ounces of silver, all within established pit shapes.
Gold producer Caledonia Mining Corporation PLC (LON:CMCL; NYSE:CMCL; TSE:CAL) has maintained its full-year production guidance after a solid start to 2018 at its 49%-owned Blanket mine in Zimbabwe. The company - which is listed in London, New York and Toronto - produced 12,924 ounces of gold in the first quarter of the year, in line with expectations and consistent with what it produced in the same period of 2017.
The mining team at Liberum Capital have singled out Asiamet Resources Ltd (LON:ARS) as its pick in a copper sector that is heading into surplus, with the price of the red metal set to slide to US$2.50 a pound by the middle of next year. "We prefer the re-rating upside in developers over the negative earnings momentum of the expensive producers," the broker said in a note to clients.
Shanta Gold Ltd (LON:SHG) has hit more gold at its Singida project in central Tanzania. The company conducted exploration and resource infill reverse circulation during the first quarter of 2018 to test down-dip and down plunge continuity of high grade mineralized shoots below the current designed pits.
AfriTin Mining Ltd (LON:ATM) has announced the signing of a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with mineral and petroleum trading firm MRI Trading AG (MRI) for an artisanal buying operation for tin concentrate in Namibia. The AIM-listed firm said together with MRI, it intends to explore the possibility of sourcing cassiterite concentrate from local artisan miners and establishing a Buying Station, which would analyse the quality of tin concentrate.
Medical diagnostics group Genedrive PLC (LON:GDR) has appointed industry veteran Tom Lindsay to its board as a non-executive director. Lindsay has been involved in the diagnostics sector for 35 years, holding several senior positions at Alere, which was bought out by Abbott Laboratories (NYSE:ABT) for US$5bn in 2017. "Tom has exceptionally strong experience in commercialising diagnostics in Africa and other low and middle income markets," said Genedrive chairman Ian Gilham.
Bezant Resources Limited (LON:BZT), the AIM-quoted mineral exploration and development company, has announced the appointment of Novum Securities Limited as the company's sole broker with immediate effect.
Range Resources Limited (LON:RRS) has advised that today it has published an updated company presentation which can be accessed on its website.