Range Resources (LSE: RRL) shares are down 50% over the past 12 months to 0.87p, though there’s more to it than immediately meets the eye. Trading in the shares was suspended last November after the firm’s board dropped to fewer than the required three individuals, and the price was stuck at 0.54p — but since trading resumed on 8 June it has already regained 61%.
Part of the road back to health has been a new funding package from Beijing Sibo Investment Management, which has already handed over £5.2m ($7.9m) in return for 650m news shares at 0.8p each, in an investment that could eventually be worth up to $35m.
This comes on top of the news that Range’s production in Trinidad reached 620 barrels of oil per day and that “For the first time in Range’s history and despite the challenging oil price environment, the Company has positive operating cashflows…“.
Is Range good value today? Sibo seems to think so, and is putting its money where its mouth is.
Falling oily
Sound Oil (LSE: SOU) shares soared to 24.4p on 5 May, but since then we’ve seen a fall of nearly 25% to 18.2p. The latest update on the firm’s second Nervesa appraisal well in Italy confirmed it had found gas shows in multiple intervals, but went on to tell us that the perforated intervals it had tested are “of relatively low permeability“. The firm must now decide whether to “initiate a well test directly or to utilize stimulation techniques beforehand“.
The company has also entered into a farm-in agreement at the Tendrara licence in Morocco, with the Moroccan Oil and Gas Investment Fund, so things look to be developing nicely.
But the recent uncertainty at a time when Sound Oil is extending its current open offer seems to have unnerved investors — but if things come good, the latest dip could turn out to have been a nice buying opportunity.
Cheap gold?
Gold miner Pan African Resources (LSE: PAF) has seen its shares lose 21% over the past 12 months, to 10.9p as I write, so is there are bargain to be had here? Well, the firm released a profit warning on 8 June telling us that its EPS and Headline EPS for the year ending June 2015 are “expected to be between 40 per cent and 60 per cent lower” than the previous year.
But there’s a fairly healthy Buy consensus out there from brokers right now, and with an increasing number of commentators suggesting stock markets are getting a bit toppy and the gold price stabilising over the past quarter, could we see interest in gold pushing Pan African shares back up?
