BYOT.L Share News (BYOT)

Coastal Energy Company is bucking the market trend, up sharply on news of a find at the Songkhla A-09 well in the Gulf of Thailand and the resumption of production at pre-shutdown levels of 10,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) following a weather delay.The latest discovery is similar to the A-08 well which initially flow tested 1,100 bopd and has been the best performing well at Songkhla so far. High-tech instruments maker Oxford Instruments has had an "excellent" half-year and boasts an order book at record levels after a 5.5% hike in order intake to £141.3m. Revenue jumped 22% to £113.2m.Favourable currency moves formed a "significant" part of the increase in adjusted pre-tax profit to £10.6m from £2.8m in 2009. Bu the company says most of the FX benefit for the year has probably been realised in the first half."Current levels of customer interest indicate that demand will continue to be strong for the remainder of the current financial year," chairman Nigel Keen said. "We are actively pursuing acquisition targets that have the potential to enhance value and our technical capabilities."Germ killing technology company Byotrol has suffered a big decline in first half sales, down to £922,000 from £2m the year before when the swine flu scare created massive demand for hand hygiene products.Excluding licence receipts and the swine flu boost, sales rose £30,000 to £580k, but the reported loss widened to £1.26m from £590k despite a 25% reduction in overhead costs.Management Consulting Group has had a mixed period since the half-year results on 2 August. It's enjoyed a strong recovery at Alexander Proudfoot and Kurt Salmon Associates, although the latter's US recovery is slow.Ineum, soon to merge with Kurt Salmon, had a patchy first half in France and its second half performance has all been affected by challenging conditions."Overall the board believes that the outlook is improving, albeit at a slightly slower pace than desired," boss Nick Stagg said. "MCG continues to believe that the business is well positioned to benefit from the recovery as it materialises."Harvard International, a distributor of consumer electronic goods in the UK and Australia, was hit by weak demand during the six months ended 30 September, dropping sales to £30.1m from £42.5m in 2009.That caused a loss before tax of £0.5m at the company formerly known as Alba compared with a £0.3m profit the year before. Full-year results are expected to be in line with forecasts.