Market Report: Gatwick is not the new Texas

Oil prospectors were thumped yesterday after learning that Gatwick is not the new Texas.

The Horse Hill exploration well two miles from the airport has electrified retail investors, with speculation that it could hold big reserves. The consortium working Horse Hill revealed yesterday that an estimated 3.1 million barrels of oil have been hit upon at a depth of 1,791ft – good news you’d think, but nowhere near enough oil to satisfy the message board brigade, who had hoped the reserves would be in the hundreds of millions of barrels.

Every company involved in Horse Hill suffered – Stellar Resources slipped 0.27p to 0.72p, Solo Oil 0.27p to 0.81p, Regency Mines 0.07p to 0.36p, Oil & Gas UK 0.57p to 1p, Alba Mineral Resources 0.32p to 0.82p, and Doriemus 0.06p to 0.15p. The well is now being drilled deeper, targeting more bountiful reserves.

The FTSE 100 closed down 30.42 points at 6,388.73, with the spread of ebola to New York creating uncertainty in the market. But the index still managed its first weekly improvement in five weeks, standing 78.44 points higher last night than it had a week earlier.

The precious metal miner Hochschild Mining tumbled 6p to 113p on the mid-cap index after revealing a drop in third- quarter production.

Despite a 5 per cent fall in sales in the first half, Spectris, which makes particle-analysis machines and other precision instruments, improved 70p to 1,715p.

The generic drug maker Hikma Pharmaceuticals suffered an 87p decline to 1,813p after admitting it has received a warning letter from the US Food and Drug Administration over one of its facilities in Portugal. Hikma said the warning would not affect production or profits.

4imprint, a manufacturer of promotional products such as branded key-rings and pens, jumped 97p to 785p thanks to a 16 per cent rise in third-quarter profits.

Omega Diagnostics Group slipped 3.12p to 16p after warning that its full-year results will be below expectations because trials of its rapid HIV test Visitect CD4 are taking longer than planned.