Wednesday's most followed: Range Resources, Bahamas Petroleum, Cove Energy, Burberry, Ocado, Ceres PowerReported by Proactive Investors on Wednesday, 23 May 2012 (on May 23, 2012)
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*Range Resources (LON:RRL)* grabbed investors’ attention today, showing up among the most popular searches on Google Finance. Interest in the company along with partner *Red Emperor Resources (LON:RMP)* was sparked by a surge in their shares yesterday.
Range added nearly one pence to close at 7.45 pence per share on Tuesday, while Red Emperor climbed two pence to 17.5 pence after both companies announced that their directors bought shares.
Executive director of Range Peter Landau has acquired 750,000 shares in the firm worth A$87,909, taking his stake to 13.95 million shares, or 0.61 percent of the company.
Meanwhile, managing director Marcus Edwards-Jones has purchased 150,000 shares worth A$18,060 to increase his shareholding to 0.15 percent.
On the same day, Red Emperor said its director Greg Bandy bought 400,000 shares for US$91,765.
Only a week ago, Landau said the Shabeel-1 well in Puntland, Somalia, could produce up to 130 million barrels of recoverable oil.
His comments came after Range announced that drilling of Shabeel-1 had been suspended for further testing and that logs showed up to three metres of potential hydrocarbon pay.
Prior to that, data from the well indicated a 12 to 20 metre zone of significant hydrocarbon pay.
“The zone needs to be commercially flow tested and this will be undertaken after the completion of the second well, Shabeel North, which will spud early June,” he said in an interview with Open Briefing.
Whilst the market and short term traders may have been anticipating further success in the deeper sections of the well, what we have discovered is extremely significant and the chances of a commercial hydrocarbon operation in Puntland are far greater now than when the well was spudded.
A couple more oil and gas stocks benefitted from share purchases today.
*Gulfsands Petroleum (LON:GPX)* said Waterford Finance & Investment has increased its shareholding to 19.29 percent from 15 percent, while *Bahamas Petroleum (LON:BPC)* received a vote of confidence from its non-executive chairman, who acquired a stake at a premium to the current market price.
Adrian Collins, who did not previously own shares in the company, has bought 200,000 shares in the company at a price of 7.12 pence per share worth £14,240.
Earlier this month, Bahamas got a boost from the results of the Bahamas election.
Perry Christie secured more votes than his opponent Hubert Ingraham, who opposed drilling in the Bahamas, to become the new prime minister.
Ingraham had reportedly said through his campaign that his government would not allow oil drilling in the Bahamas without additional regulations - although he had earlier threatened an outright ban.
Christie’s Progressive Liberal Party is believed to be more supportive of oil exploration and he has previously been a legal consultant to Bahamas Petroleum.
This morning, shares in Bahamas rallied 7.5 percent to 7.4 pence, while Gulfsands climbed 5.5 percent to 104 pence.
However, it was *Cove Energy (LON:COV)* that topped the leaderboard in the oil and gas sector, jumping 11.5 percent to 249.25 pence after PTT Exploration and Production raised its big for the East African focused firm.
The Thai energy group is now offering 240 pence per share in Cove, valuing the group at £1.22 billion, topping *Royal Dutch Shell’s (LON:RDSB) *220 pence per share bid.
This new development in the Cove bidding war came not long after the the Anadarko-operated Golfinho exploration well showed a recoverable resource of 17 to more than 30 trillion cubic feet of gas, which the consortium is looking to develop as a LNG project.
Cove currently holds an 8.5 percent interest in the Ruvuma basin offshore Mozambique, where Cove holds an 8.5 percent stake, which is its main asset.
Away from oil and gas, investors following the retail sector had more news to digest today.
*Burberry (LON:BRBY)* released its preliminary results a day after sector bellwether *Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS)* reported its first full year decline in profits in three years, while online grocer *Ocado (LON:OCDO) *updated investors on its performance.
Burberry said its pre-tax profits soared 26 percent to £376 million in the year to end March as revenues rose 24 percent to £1.86 billion with the Asia Pacific region accounting for 37 percent of total sales.
The fashion house added that it plans to invest £180-200 million this year, looking to increase its retail space by 12-14 percent. According to Burberry, the investment will be “biased to larger format stores in flagship markets, including London, Chicago and Hong Kong”.
“While we remain vigilant about the external environment, we will continue to invest in front-end opportunities within our brand, digital and retail strategies, to drive sustained, profitable growth and enduring customer engagement over the long term,” said chief executive of Burberry Angela Ahrendts.
Meanwhile, Ocado expects to see year on year sales growth of around 13 percent in the second quarter.
The group added that operational performance at the group’s Hatfield customer fulfilment centre (CFC) continues to improve and is now operating at a record level of capacity.
The construction of Ocado’s second CFC at Dordon, Warwickshire, is progressing according to plan, with testing and commissioning due to start this summer and operations are expected to start in the first quarter of 2013.
“Ocado continues to see sales growth increasing as demand for online grocery shopping expands, and our award winning service and increasing range continue to attract new customers,” the company told investors this morning.
“The board is encouraged by the progress of the business so far this year.”
The reports from Burberry and Ocado were on the list of the most read RNS statements of the day along with an update from fuel cell maker *Ceres Power Holdings (LON:CWR)*.
The group reported significant progress in improving core technology power degradation performance and the reliability of its combined heat and power (CHP) products.
The recent results underpin its confidence in meeting the mass market product specification required for launch in 2016, the company told investors.
The reason for the fairly high degradation rates reported in March from tests has now been identified as contamination from the test infrastructure.
The sources of this contamination have been identified and addressed, and degradation of around 1 per cent per 1,000 hours has now been achieved.
Ceres has also made substantial improvements in CHP product reliability, through hardware and software enhancements that allow unimpeded running and increased uptime.
Links:  Full news story
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