Away from the plethora of company reports - most of which have been well received and have helped lift the FTSE 100 above 6000 again - a notable riser is oil company EnQuest.
Its shares have added 8.3p to 138.3p after it announced an agreement with Fairfield Acer to increase its shareholding in the Crawford field in the North Sea. EnQuest will also operate the licence, which contains the Porter oil discovery and adds 8m barrels of oil equivalent to its reserves. Under the terms of the deal EnQuest will increase its stake from 19% to 51% in return for carrying £34.85m of Fairfield's development costs. The company said its position would be consolidated by the deal and also its new role as operator of the field.
It should hardly come as a surprise that EnQuest has been acquisitive in the area. Unlike many others, the company actually said the coalition's North Sea tax hike would be a benefit, since it was likely to push down the price of potential acquisitions. Oriel Securities said:
Whilst the increase in net asset value is insignificant, this looks like a sensible deal as it should give EnQuest control to progress the Crawford development.
Overall the FTSE 100 has climbed 61.19 points to 6003.88, helped by strong Chinese export figures which have lifted commodity prices and mining shares, and a number of better than expected company updates.
