London open: Footsie looks to end losing streak

28th Oct 2010 08:15

Stocks have taken their cue from Wall Street, which recovered in late trade Wednesday, and are helped by a fight back at ARM Holdings and buoyant miners.Royal Dutch Shell grew earnings by 18% in the third quarter compared with a year ago, while the figure excluding big one-off items rocketed 88% to $4.93bn, well ahead of market forecasts. Earnings, on a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis were $3.5bn, up from $3bn a year ago, though that was well below the $4.5bn it made in the second quarter. Mining firm Kazakhmys hailed another solid quarter of copper production and said it remains on course to hit its full year output target. Copper cathode production for the first nine months of 2010 totalled 239 kilotonnes (kt). The company has set itself a target of producing at least 300kt during the course of 2010.Other miners, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata are in the blue.Third quarter sales for drugs giant AstraZeneca were much as the market had anticipated, with competition from generic alternatives to its drugs denting sales in the US. Revenue in the third quarter eased 4%, or 2% using constant exchange rates (CER), to $7,898m from $8,200m a year earlier. Underlying profit before tax dipped 10% to $3,083m from $3,437m.The champagne corks are popping at oil giant BG after it began producing oil from its 100,000 barrel a day facility on the lucrative Tupi field in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil. BG, which has a 25% interest in block BM-S-11, says the first permanent floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel in the concession - Cidade de Angra dos Reis - is initially connected to well RJS-660, or Tupi-P1. As well as the oil, it's expected to produce up to 177 million standard cubic feet of gas every day.Premier Oil has been awarded five new licences in the 26th UK Licensing Round, including several blocks close to its existing interests in the Central North Sea. The company, which already has a 35% interest in the potentially huge Catcher field, said the wins, announced yesterday by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, include two operated licences.Revenue jumped 30% at Aggreko on a constant currency basis during the third quarter, and the temporary power and temperature control expert now thinks full-year profit will beat consensus forecasts. The football World Cup in South Africa this summer, a heatwave in America and increase in prices pushed sales up 34% at the Local business in the three months to September 30. It predicts full-year profits of around £300m, better than the current consensus of £290m.Hovis bread owner Premier Foods said total group sales fell 4.2% in the three months to 30 September after a reduction in non-branded sales. "We still aim to make progress in the full year but the slowdown in Q3 means this is likely to be more modest and is, as always, dependent on Christmas trading," said Branston Pickle and Bisto gravy owner.Asia-focused oil and gas firm Salamander Energy said drilling has started on its Marindan-1 exploration well in Indonesia. The Marindan-1 well, located in the Kutai production share contract (PSC), East Kalimantan, will be drilled to a depth of around 3,265 metres true vertical depth sub-sea. It is targeting gas in multiple stacked sequences comprising both sandstone and carbonate reservoirs of late Miocene to early Pliocene age.