Arrow Energy Limited (AOE) requested its shares be placed in trading halt this morning pending the release of an announcement concerning an update to the takeover proposal received from a company jointly owned by Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina. The company said the trading halt would be lifted prior to the commencement of trade on Tuesday 23 March or until the announcement is made.

Fortescue Metals Group Limited (FMG) said that it had upgraded its resource estimates for its Solomon Project within the central Pilbara region by 300 million tonnes to 2.7 billion tonnes. Fortescue said the resource upgrade would underwrite the stage 1 development operation at Solomon with a target production of 60Mt of product per year based on 40Mt of CID and 20Mt of bedded Brockman ore, the company said. The company added that a further 88 million tonnes would be added to indicated resources for total 720 million tonnes.

Macarthur Coal Limited (MCC) said its port and rail services through Dalrymple Bay Coal Terminal have been suspended due to severe weather conditions associated with Tropical Cyclone Ului. The company said consequently it would declare force majeure in relation to all accepted vessels.  Macarthur said that at this stage the company is unable to advise whether the suspension of port and rail services would impact upon its full year sales forecast of 4.8Mt to 5.0Mt.