London pre-open: New Year off to a good start

3rd Jan 2012 06:57

London's leading stocks are set to get the year off to a strong start with City sources predicting the FTSE 100 will open up 101 points from the previous close of 5,572. A bitter legal battle appears to be brewing between FTSE 100 mining firm Anglo American and the Chilean, state-owned copper miner Codelco. Anglo says it has received a letter from Codelco seeking to exercise an option to buy a 49% stake in Anglo American Sur, a huge copper mining plant in Chile that Anglo has spent billions upgrading. On December 22nd, Anglo filed a legal complaint for breach of contract over what it describes as an "illegitimate premature attempt to exercise the option." Both firms say they are willing to work to a negotiated settlement.Support services firm Carillion has kicked off 2012 with a contract on the Birmingham section of the M6 motorway. The £104.9m contract is to transform the section of the M6 between junctions 5 and 8 into a so-called managed motorway. Managed motorways use various technological features combined with new operating procedures to actively control traffic flow. This includes variable mandatory speed limits and opening up the hard shoulder to traffic to reduce congestion and improve journey times and safety.African oil producer Afren said end-year production at its Ebok, Okoro and Côte d'Ivoire operations has topped previous guidance. As a result of the ramp up in production at the Ebok field, off the coast of Nigeria, aggregate net working interest production attributable to Afren has reached a rate of circa 55,400 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). A production rate above the year-end target of 50,000 boepd has been sustained since 19 December 2011 from the Ebok, Okoro and Côte d'Ivoire operations.Sticking with African energy firms, Ophir Energy has started its 2012 drilling programme in Tanzania with the drill-ship Odfjell Metro-1. The first three wells in the programme will be Jodari-1, Mzia-1 (previously named 1W) and Papa-1 (previously named 3A), the company revealed. __NR