Let's start with Block Energy, which announced the completion of drilling at well 38Z. They say that field observations at the well site indicate multiple natural fractures, and oil shows were encountered during drilling.

But this isn't meant to be an exploration drill, the only issues here should be flow rates and water cut, so the choice of words may to some be concerning. Anyway, Jon Fitzpatrick of Glasgow must like it: he's just bought 3.8% of the company.

Echo Energy announced that the location for the first well of its four-well exploration programme has been selected and construction works are now being finalised. They expect drilling to commence on schedule during December, possibly before. As an investment, the company has been a disaster, but let's see if this time it can break its run of constant bad luck.

RiverFort Global Opportunities issued an investment update. It's not an oil and gas company as such, but finances many of the smaller ones by taking convertible loan notes. The current client list comprises Savannah Petroleum, UK Oil & Gas, Anglo African Oil & Gas (via an investor sharing agreement in its case) InfraStrata, Angus Energy and Ascent Resources. If you're into these type of companies, then you can get in on an even better basis through RiverFort, since its net asset value of 0.113p per share is 50% more than the current share price of 0.075p. And with RiverFort holding convertible loan notes and investor sharing agreements, it doesn't really have any downside risk.

Tower Resources announced an operational update. It's signed a contract for the site survey at the intended well location on the company's license in Cameroon and hopes this is the final operational step before commencing drilling operations. The well, of course, is subject to financing and the key news here will be that of a farm-out. Let's see.

Cabot Energy offers a cautionary tale. It has announced the proposed cancellation of admission of its Ordinary Shares to trading on AIM on Tuesday 3 December and the shares which were as high as 16p in the last year have collapsed to 1.5p bid. This is a risk for all small public companies with a majority shareholder, who no longer sees a commercial advantage to a stock market quotation, and helps to illustrate why some small oil and gas companies appear to the unwary to be unexplained bargains.

Finally, the new investors at Petrel Resources want to increase their stake to 51%. Thereafter, it's anticipated that a flow of potential investment proposals will be offered to Petrel. I mentioned this company as a buy a few times at around a penny and it shot up to nearly 10 p. The big initial profit has been had here, but it's always worth keeping an eye on this.

Moving forwards, news from all the other companies who made announcements last week will be covered in the Sunday blog and I'll be back mid-week with another podcast focussed on whatever interesting looking news comes along in the meantime.