London pre-open: FTSE to take lead from US ahead of jobless data

18th Jul 2012 07:27

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 11 points from yesterday's close of 5,629, taking its lead from gains seen in the US as investors await further direction from the latest UK jobless data and the publication of the minutes of the last Bank of England MPC meeting. Oil and gas giant Tullow has found oil and gas-condensate at its Wawa-1 well offshore Ghana, the first of three important remaining exploration wells to be drilled in the second half of 2012. This will be welcome news for the company's shareholders who were disappointed on Monday after the firm said that it had plugged and abandoned a well in Guyana due to safety concerns. Wawa-1, located on the Deepwater Tano licence, encountered 20 metres of gas-condensate pay and 13 metres of oil pay in turbidite sands. June's miserable weather and the continuation of same in July is likely to put a dampener on the RSA Insurance Group's full year underwriting performance. The insurance group has estimated that across its UK Household, Motor and Commercial Property portfolios the net loss from June's adverse weather was around £40m. Current expectations are that the impact of the continued rainfall experienced to date in July will be around £10m. In addition, the net loss to the group in relation to the two earthquakes in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy in May is estimated to be around £35m. Resources behemoth BHP Billiton said it achieved annual production records across ten of its operations in the year to the end of June. Iron ore production in the final quarter of its financial year was up 15% from a year earlier to 40.89m tonnes, its twelfth consecutive annual production record in iron ore.