London pre-open: Flat start for FTSE

16th Mar 2012 07:23

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open down two points from yesterday's close of 5,941, ignoring strong gains in the US last night and holding onto gains made in recent months. EnQuest, the largest UK independent oil producer in the North Sea, has completed the acquisition of a stake in the Kraken oil discovery, together with interests in the surrounding exploration acreage. The transaction, first proposed on January 24th, will see EnQuest buy a 25% interest blocks 9/2b and 9/2c, including Kraken, from Nautical Petroleum which have a gross contingent resource estimate of 160m barrels of oil equivalents (MMboe).Oil and gas firm Tullow, which released record results earlier this week, had more good news for shareholders as it released details of the successful drilling of an appraisal well off the coast of Ghana. The group said the Enyenra-4A appraisal well, in the deep-water Tano licence offshore Ghana, has successfully encountered oil in very good quality sandstone reservoirs.RIT Capital Partners, the investment trust chaired by Lord Rothschild, is to form a strategic partnership with the Edmond de Rothschild Group, the international private banking and asset management group chaired by Baron Benjamin de Rothschild. The two firms will create a new company that will be 49% owned by RIT, with the majority stake held by EdRG.