London afternoon: Early gains dissipating

Footsie is still in the blue but the gains are slowly dribbling away on a day which, aside from the heavily trailed dissolution of Parliament, is light on news.Petrofac is leading the market higher on its first day of trading since demerging its UK Continental Shelf assets into a new company, Enquest.Other resource stocks are thriving, particularly the miners as copper surges past the $8,000 a tonne mark. Kazakhmys, ENRC and Vedanta are the best performers among the miners. Royal Bank of Scotland, the blue-chip index's best performer in the first quarter of 2010, is starting the second quarter in fine form on weekend reports that a Richard Branson bid is on the way for some of its unwanted parts.In economic news, the UK's construction sector expanded for the first time in more than two years last month. The Chartered Institute of Purchase and Supply/Markit construction PMI index rose to 53.1 in March from 48.5 the previous month. Broker comment is driving the share price performance of some blue chips, notably Admiral and BAE Systems. Insurer Admiral is wanted after Bernstein Rdearch suggested it could overtake Direct Line as the market leader in the car insurance market in the UK in the next decade. In contrast, defence firm BAE Systems falls back after Goldman Sachs issued a 'sell' note yesterday.Vodafone is the biggest faller on talk that the UK mobile phone industry is facing capacity constraints. The surging popularity of smartphones is clogging up the airwaves and the issue should be addressed in the next parliament, but a change of government or a hung parliament could delay the release of new spectra for the mobile phone companies.Testing and inspections firm Intertek is boosting its presence in the pharmaceutical and environmental markets with the acquisition of the regulatory and safety testing businesses of Ciba Expert Services (Ciba ES) from BASF.Infrastructure contractor Balfour Beatty has been appointed as a preferred bidder for a public-private partnership (PPP) contract to upgrade 16 fire stations in the north west of England.Steve Smith, chief executive of Northgate, the vehicle hire group, is to step down from the board. Smith had been scheduled to retire last year on 1 August.Also heading for the exit is Keith Chapman, chairman of home shopping and educational supplies group Findel, and Kim Ward, aerospace engineer Hampson's chief executive for the past ten years. Hampson said "the outcome for the year to 31 March 2011 will be dependent upon receiving strong intake in the next few months of productionable orders and no further delays in the release by customers of final design data on a number of major programmes currently in backlog."Connaught, the support services group which last month quashed takeover speculation, has confirmed that its £125m contract from Norwich County Council is now official after a legal challenge to the award was resolved. Pharmacy and GP services supplier Assura said it is no longer in takeover talks after the parties that had made the initial bid approach confirmed that they do not intend to pursue an offer.Two companies bearing bad news today are Printing.com and Endace. Specialist printing group Printing.com expects its full-year results to be 'marginally' below market forecasts after recent trading softened while networking monitoring solutions provider Endace said its full-year results will be 'materially' below earlier expectations due to contract delays.There is better news from specialist utility contractor May Gurney, which expects this year's results to meet expectations, with new orders now at record levels.SOCO International said the second phase of development has begun on the Ca Ngu Vang oil and gas field, offshore Vietnam. The first well in the programme, CNV-6P-ST1, is expected to take around 60 days to drill.Shares in oil and gas explorer and producer Regal Petroleum jumped after it said production at its SV-58 Well in Ukraine had doubled since its last announcement in January.Things are going less well for Europa Oil and Gas, which remains perplexed at the poor production from its Hykeham-1 well, which lies on the PEDL150 licence near Lincoln.