Proactive news headlines: Shanta Gold Ltd, Mkango Resources Ltd,

Shanta Gold Ltd (), the East Africa-focused gold producer, developer and explorer, said it has settled all outstanding gold forward sale commitments, leaving the company unhedged. As of early 2020, the company had sold forward 40,000 ounces to January 2021 at an average price of US$1,244 per ounce. The forward sales were a condition of its senior lending facility.

. () () has announced the appointment of Bacchus Capital Advisers Limited as strategic and financial adviser, encompassing mergers and acquisitions, takeover defence, strategic and other financial advice. A London-based independent investment and merchant banking boutique, Bacchus Capital has been involved in building some of the world’s most successful mining companies from the earliest stages and have played a key role in many of the metals and mining industry’s most significant transactions in recent decades.

PLC () said it has signed Henrik Mclean, a top-ranked professional esports player, to its Fortnite team. The company said Mclean will join Nikolaj Andreas Frøslev, who was recruited to the team on November 19, 2020. The two players have a combined social media following of around 335,000 across several channels including YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Twitch. Mclean has signed a one-year contract with Guild with an option to renew for an additional year. He will compete alongside Frøslev under the Guild banner in Fortnite tournaments either jointly or separately depending on fixtures and match opportunities.

() has confirmed that its 96 SARS CoV-2 Kit continues to detect all known variants of COVID-19, including the newest string in the south-east of England. The kit is designed to target both the E and N genes of SARS-CoV-2, said Genedrive. The new variant involves a mutation in the highly mutagenic S gene, which encodes spike proteins, and is not one the company relies on for detection of the virus.

Scotgold Resources Ltd () said it continues to make progress on the ground at Cononish, the newly commissioned gold mine in the Grampian hills in Scotland. First gold was poured on November 30, 2020, and since then work has focussed on commissioning of the outstanding circuits, principally the flotation and dewatering circuits, as well as operator training and punch listing minor items. 

Bahamas Petroleum PLC () said it has commenced drilling of the Perseverance 1 well, with spudding having taken place on December 20, 2020. The AIM-listed firm said the well is expected to take 45-60 days to complete and is targeting P50 prospective oil resources of 0.77bn barrels with an upside of 1.44bn barrels. In a statement, BPC chief executive Simon Potter said the spudding of the well was a “momentous milestone” and that the company is now “within a couple of months of understanding the scale of potential resource uplift that might be accessed within the licences: a potential uplift that is the traditional domain of the ‘oil majors’”.

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