London is in a downbeat mood in early dealing following the drop on Wall Street overnight despite better than expected sales figures from the bellwether of the High Street, Marks & Spencer.M&S enjoyed a strong start to the year with food and non-food like-for-like sales beating expectations in the first quarter. Total sales in the 13 weeks to March 27 were up by 6.2% from the same period the previous year and by 5.1% on a like-for-like basis.British Airways and Spanish airline Iberia have formally signed a merger agreement that will result in the creation of one of the world's largest airline groups by the end of the year, BA said, while no-frills airline Easyjet said it carried 13.5% more passengers in March compared with the same month in 2009. Along with BA, only Severn Trent and LSE are in the blue at present.Vedanta Resources saw a significant uplift in annual production at all its businesses in fiscal 2009/10, with record quarterly production of iron ore and aluminium during the first three months of 2010.Oil and gas firm BG Group and its joint venture partners have successfully completed drilling a Tupi field appraisal well in the BM-S-11 licence area, Santos Basin pre-salt, offshore Brazil. The appraisal well confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons on the outer limits of the Tupi field.Plastics group Victrex said the strong start to the year continued into February and March, leading to a 52% rise in sales volumes in the six months to March 31 compared with the same period the previous year.Asia-focused independent oil and gas exploration and production company Salamander Energy has plugged and abandoned Phu Kheng-1 well in block L27/43, Khorat Basin, onshore north-east Thailand. Salamander owns a 27.2% interest in block L27/43.British Columbia based aggregates company Pan Pacific has reported strong demand for its products from its Quadling quarry after the new by-pass road for hauling aggregates from the site was opened on 26 March.
