London open: Blue chips track sideways

28th Mar 2011 08:51

It's been a very quiet start with little company news and more concern over the state of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. Latest reports suggest extremely high radiation levels have been detected in some buildings near the plant's number two reactor. In Europe, concern over Portugal's financial situation will also be a drag from while there is no resolution on a bail-out.Tullow Oil has found oil at the Teak-2 exploration well in the West Cape Three Points licence offshore Ghana. The Irish oil company, which has a 23% stake in the licence, discovered 27 metres of net hydrocarbon bearing Campanian and Turonian reservoirs at the well, drilled between the Jubilee field and Teak-1 discovery.A 13-year tax wrangle between the US and the UK involving drugs giant AstraZeneca has been resolved, resulting in a substantially lower tax rate for Astra in the current financial year. As a consequence, Astra has lifted its core earnings per share guidance for fiscal 2011 to $6.90 - $7.20 from $6.45 - $6.75 previously.Irn-Bru and Tizer maker AG Barr saw profit on ordinary activities before tax and exceptional items increase by 13.3% to £31.6m in the 12 months to 29 January from £27.9m the year before. The company saw strong growth from all core brands in all channels.Growth in its business to business titles helped lift Daily Mail Group's underlying revenues by 5% over the past five months, though it was another tough period for regional paper arm Northcliffe.Shares in beleaguered care home owner Southern Cross slumped even lower on a weekend report it has told care home landlords it will not pay next quarter's rent.2010 was a year of strong recovery for Lamprell, the provider of engineering services to the international oil and gas industry, with the strength of the oil price contributing to unprecedented levels of enquiries. Underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) soared 90.3% to $78.4m.Exillon Energy's latest appraisal well on its West Siberia prospect has found more oil, this time on the northern extension of the East EWS I field.