BP Share News (BP.)

The blue-chip index trod water over the lunchtime session with the majority of leading stocks consolidating the morning's gains. Oil services group Petrofac is firmer on the back of a lucrative contract win. The government of Sharjah has appointed the company to take over operational responsibility and facilities management of the Sajaa Gas Plant and related assets in the United Arab Emirates. The five year contracted is worth more than $250m.Petrofac's sector peer Wood Group is still trading in line with forecasts and expects to match full-year estimates. The Aberdeen-based firm, which today won a $152m contract to convert California's Tracy Peaker power plant to a combined cycle facility, said higher bidding volumes and recent contract awards at its engineering business should help improve numbers in the second half and into 2011. Insurance giant Prudential is the day's big faller among blue-chips after JP Morgan Cazenove cut its rating on the stock from "neutral" to "underweight" on valuation grounds, though the target price has been hoisted 40p to 653p.Oil titan BP, meanwhile, also sinks lower after Royal Bank of Scotland cut its recommendation on the stock from "buy" to "hold" while telecoms leviathan BT saw its rating cut to "underperform" from "market perform" by US broker Bernstein.Broker comment lifts satellite operator Inmarsat, however. Goldman Sachs has upgraded the stock from "neutral" to "buy". Soft furnishings retailer Dunelm is also floating higher after KBC Peel Hunt initiated coverage with a "buy" recommendation and a 520p price target, while high-tech group Smiths Group edges higher after UBS upped its price target to 1550p. Builders merchant and Wickes' owner Travis Perkins is on track as sales improved again in the third quarter. Turnover for the nine months to end of September rose 6%, driven by the merchants businesses and a modest improvement at Wickes, which grew sales for period to 2 October by 2.1%, though like-for-like turnover eased 0.1%.Drugs companies AstraZeneca and Pozen said their jointly developed pain reliever Vimovo has received positive agreement for approval across 23 EU countries. Vimovo treats osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and ankylosing spondylitis.British defence company Cobham has been awarded a contract that allows it to compete for orders with the US missile Defense Agency worth up to $1.62bn.Ladbrokes, the bookmaking firm, is higher after it said group net revenue was up 12% year on year in the third quarter. Operating profits (excluding high rollers) were 128% higher, albeit against weak comparative figures. The company has seen a recovery in its football betting margins and also banked £8.3m of gross win from the tail-end of the World Cup in the third quarter.No-frills airline easyJet is going well after saying it has agreed a settlement to its acrimonious dispute with founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou over its continued use of the 'easy' name. The price is not cheap. For the next 50 years, easyJet will have to pay a royalty of 0.25% of revenues, fixed at £3.9m and £4.95m in the first and second years respectively.Electronic component maker e2v saw a strong order flow over the past six months and as a result trading this year will be better than expected. Industrial disruption in the latter part of 2009/10 meant e2v delivered an unusually high level of overdue orders in the six months to September. Bluetooth chip specialist CSR "will defend itself" against Broadcom which filed an enforcement action on Friday against redesigned products made by the UK firm's SiRF unit. In the latest episode of a long-running patent infringement case, the American firm alleges violation of the US International Trade Commission's (ITC) orders despite a previous ruling by US customs that the "redesigned chips fall outside the scope of the exclusion order issued by the ITC".Among smaller companies, shares in Global Petroleum jumped after the Australia-based oil and gas group said drilling the Tyler Ranch horizontal well in Texas, in which it has an 8% interest, 'encountered good oil and gas shows.'Video search engine Blinkx should turn over about $27m in the six months to 30 September, double the figure reported last year, and beat current profit forecasts.Brownfield site developer Inland has seen a return to profitability with a pre-tax profit of £1.1m in the year to end-June, a substantial improvement from the pre-tax loss of £10.5m previously.Uranium exploration and development company Uranium Resources has completed phase one of its drilling programme at the Mtonya prospect in Tanzania and declared itself pleased with the results, which have confirmed management's geological interpretation on a district and prospect scale.