Coeur d’Alene Mines Corporation (CXC) announced sales of metal for the first nine months of 2008 of $147.1 million, down 5.3% from the first nine months of 2007. The company said its net loss of $4.3 million during the first nine months of 2008 included $23.3 million of pre-development costs and non-cash mark-to-market adjustments related to metal sales yet to be finalised with smelters. The company said cash costs averaged $4.99 per ounce of silver year-to-date, an increase of 55c per ounce due to inflationary pressures for diesel, labor and power inputs. The company said it produced of 3.1 million ounces of silver in the quarter, up 25% from the second quarter and 15% higher than last year’s third quarter, as a result of the contribution from its San Bartolomé mine.

Interra Resources Limited (ITR) said the operator of the Tanjung Miring Timur oil field in Indonesia commenced drilling a development well, TMT-51, on 1 November 2008. Interra owns a 70% interest in the TMT technical assistance contract. The company said the well is a direct offset to and targets the same producing formation as well TMT-48 which was completed in May 2007 as an oil producer and is also in a similar structural position. The company advised it was not certain that the development drilling would ultimately yield commercially recoverable hydrocarbons or profitable production.

Samson Oil & Gas Limited (SSN) said, as previously advised, it was participating in the evaluation of the Bakken Formation within its acreage holding in the North Stockyard Oil Field. The company said at Monday 3 November, seven inch casing had been run to 11,531’ (measured depth) within the middle member of the Bakken formation. The company said during the course of preparing to run the casing, 3,200 units of trip gas were recorded. According to SSN the event produced a 60’ flare at the surface, which in this play, was typically indicative of a productive hydrocarbon reservoir. The well was now expected to be drilled as an approximate 5,000’ horizontal leg within the middle member of the Bakken formation to enable the wellbore to come into contact with as much of the productive formation as possible for its entire horizontal length.

AIM Resources Limited (AIM) shares jumped 56% after the company reported additional assay results received from the Mumbwa Phase 3 drilling program in Zambia.  The company said the results continued to confirm the presence of copper mineralisation at Mumbwa and provided further confidence in the exploration strategy being undertaken by the company and its JV partner, BHP Billiton Limited (BHP). The company said it remained optimistic about the potential for the project, and had commissioned an independent geologist to review results from the first seven available drill holes.  The company said 401m of copper mineralisation (CU) was indentified in drillhole S36-017, between 62m and 463m depth. The average weighted Cu grade over the entire 401m sampled interval is 0.98%. AIM said the mineralisation appeared to be more persistent from 161m to 431m depth for a drilled thickness for 270 metres @ 1.37 % Cu.

Bandanna Energy Limited (BND) appointed James Porter as chief operating officer and Matthew Scott as chief financial officer. The company said the appointments coincided with the opening of BND’s Brisbane office, which would operate the company’s Bowen and Galilee Basin coal activities. James Porter was most recently principal strategic planning engineer with BHP Coal Pty Limited and had previously worked with Thiess Pty Limited and Foxleigh Mining Pty Limited. The company said Matthew Scott had some 18 years financial services experience including positions as general manager finance at Foxleigh Mining Pty Liimited and eight years with Coopers & Lybrand in Brisbane and London where he performed a variety of roles including audit advisory, accounting and business assurance.

First Australian Resources Limited (FAR) added 28% after the company said it had been advised by the operator that the Stokes Bay-1 testing programme, in the EP 104/R1 Permits located in the Canning Basin, near the town of Derby, in Western Australia had now been completed. The company said the programme involved an initial circulation of fresh water and swabbing of the wellbore before using nitrogen in an attempt to lift the heavy drilling fluids above the Nullara Formation carbonate reservoir and reduce the pressure on the formation. FAR said the test programme was designed to induce flow of formation fluids from the cavernous Nullara Formation reservoir. The company said the testing had recommenced, the swabbing and nitrogen lifting operations recovered an additional 190 barrels (”bbls”) of drilling fluid. This brought the total drilling fluids recovered to 3,834 bbls and represents some 38% of the estimated 10,000 bbls of drilling fluid lost to the formation during drilling operations. The company said the EP 104/R1 joint venture parties would now consider the results of this testing programme before determining any future testing of the wellbore.

WorleyParsons Limited (WOR) said its Canadian subsidiary, Colt WorleyParsons, was awarded a $190 million engineering, procurement and construction contract in Alberta, Canada by Suncor Energy. The contract involves works on the Firebag Stage 4 Pads project, a key element of Suncor Energy’s plan to deliver increased bitumen supply from the Firebag in-situ facility located near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta. Stage 4 construction is scheduled to begin in late 2008 and the facility is expected to be completed by the end of 2010.