London afternoon: Triple digit rise for Footsie

Bid speculation is adding froth to a London stock market already playing catch-up with European and US markets that posted strong gains yesterday.Oil giant BPis boosted by reports that rival Shell looked into making a bid for the company in the wake of last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which sent BP's share price plummeting. The higher oil price is also good news for oil stocks. Silver miner Fresnillo, meanwhile, is wanted on the return of rumours that Miexican business magnate Carlos Slim is running the rule over the company prior to launching a bid. Gold miner Randgold Resources is a rare faller, however, as investors lose their appetite for gold's haven qualities. Banks are strong led by Royal Bank of Scotland, which has been given a boost by Exane BNP Paribas upgrading the stock to its 'outperform' rating. Barclays and Lloyds are also going well.In company news, no frills airline easyJet is to exercise its option to take delivery of 15 Airbus A320 aircraft between 2012 and 2014. It has agreed new options over a further 33 A320 aircraft, while 20 of the A319 aircraft which easyJet had contracted to acquire from Airbus have been converted into orders for A320 aircraft.Cairn Energy has agreed a contract to tie-up two drilling vessels for its 2011 exploration programme offshore Greenland. Subject to approval from the government of Greenland, Cairn intends to drill up to four wells in 2011. Cairn has also entered into a stand-by secured revolving debt facility of $900m that will also provide funding for general corporate purposes. Desire Petroleum crashed again as it confirmed drilling at its 25/5-1 well on the Dawn/Jacinta prospect in the North Falkland Basin has reached target depth but failed to find any oil.The rig will now move to Rockhopper Exploration which will drill "one or two wells", subject to regulatory approval, before returning to Desire to drill a well at a location still to be finalised and subject to regulatory approval.Construction and engineering group Costain has been awarded a highways contract by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council. The £59m contract is to construct 4.5 kilometres of dual carriageway access road from the M4 Junction 38 into Port Talbot and the docks, as well as completing the link to Junction 42 on the M4 and West Wales.Bid target Blacks Leisure saw strong underlying trading through December, with like-for-like sales in its Outdoor stores up by over 10%, though last year's retrenchment meant sales fell overall.Chemring, the military decoy flares and mine detection firm, said its US subsidiary, Non-Intrusive Inspection Technology (NITEK), has won a $38.4m contract from the US Army. Trading during the fourth quarter has been "buoyant" at software solutions developer Delcam which now predicts 2010 profits will top forecasts. Both software licence and maintenance sales for the last three months of the year, typically the group's most active trading period, were ahead of management expectations across all the major markets in Europe, Asia and North America.North Sea oilfields operator Xcite Energy said its 9/3b-6z well on the Bentley field has been successfully suspended for potential future use as a production well.Oil and gas firm President Petroleum saw its share price take a dip after an update on its drilling operations in Louisiana, USA and South Australia.Trading during the fourth quarter has been "buoyant" at software solutions developer Delcam which now predicts 2010 profits will top forecasts.