Companies: BUR    CFM    ROSN    TLW   

Mounting tension in the Middle East, with bombings and reprisals in the Lebanon and Israel spilling over into sabotage attacks on a northern Iraqi pipeline, is providing strength for oil prices. Brent crude topped $76 a barrel at one point, as dealers weighed potential supply interruptions with a persistent lag in the growth of global refining capacity.

This uncertainty has brought in buyers of gold, though it remains volatile. Copper has been wavering on increased inventories.

After Russian oil giant Rosneft’s London float, the market is watching for a similar move by Servestal. This is the Russian iron and steel group headed by Aleksei Mordashov, which almost merged with Luxembourg’s Arcelor in a spoiling move to fend off the ultimately successful bid from Mittal Steel.

Burren Energy and Tullow Oil have whetted the market’s appetite with interests in the Republic of the Congo, next door to the mineral-rich Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Phil Edmond’s Central African Mining & Exploration has spent £13.5 million taking its stake in the DRC’s ‘Congo Resources Joint Venture’ in the Kakanda Province, with an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of copper and 500,000 tonnes of cobalt, from 75 to 100 per cent.