After the beating that many AIM oil and gas companies got in 2013, there’s plenty of news flow to look forward to from several companies notably Bowleven, Xcite and Gulf Keystone. Lets hope its good news!

2013 will be the first year since 2000 that that the price of gold will be down, and down pretty significantly with a 30% drop year to date, the biggest fall since 1984. Take Avocet Mining, a company I’ve been following for a few years – a hero to zero stock if ever I saw one!

I noticed the drop in the Iofina share price this week as this was highlighted in Investors Chronicle a few weeks ago as a potential big growth story for 2014.

Couple of interesting announcements from Falklands oil explorer Rockhopper Exploration over the last 2 days. Unfortunately it’s going to be pretty long wait for major news from the Falklands given the sticky rig situation and the need to transport a suitable rig down to the area.

News today that Xcite Energy (XEL) have refinanced their outstanding debt via a private placement with Canadian based West Face Capital Inc. for a year to two year period. The shares are up a couple of pence versus a declining oil sector.

There were quite a few broker notes last week on Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP). One of these is Edison who reckon the company is worth just 176p on a risked NAV basis.

On 6th December 2013, the end game for Falklands hydrocarbon explorer Desire Petroleum (DES) finally came with the following RNS signaling the merger with fellow Falklands Islands oil explorer, Falklands Oil and Gas (FOGL). It might be argued that this signals an end of an era, but more likely the end of one chapter of the Falklands saga.

An announcement today from Cameroon focused oil and gas explorer, Bowleven with the directors being awarded significant numbers of shares under a long term incentive programme. Given the bombed out state of the share price at 37.5p when the award was made, Kevin Hart (the Chief Executive) and the board of directors must be feeling very pleased with themselves!