Aside from Chancellor George Osborne's statement and the UK macro picture, a big small cap story of the day came from tungsten explorer W Resources (LON:WRES), which has been granted development approval for its La Parrilla tungsten mine in Spain.
Shares surged over 23% on the back of the approval, which is the main one required to move the fast track mine proposal at La Parrilla towards production and follows the receipt of environmental approval in July.
Also in resources, which was a big theme today, Falcon Oil & Gas (LON:FOG) chief executive Philip O'Quigley said that with “very encouraging” results in a new emerging shale play, the group was uniquely positioned in an otherwise challenging oil and gas sector. It posted financial results today.
A fast-tracked exploration drilling programme, of three wells, completed in earlier this month.
Positive results from the first two wells, both vertical, led to the drilling of an additional horizontal well being brought forward by about 12 months.
In mining, Royal Road Minerals (CVE:RYR) announced a deal to sell its Turkish subsidiary as it focuses efforts on the Golondrina project and Colombia.
It has entered a purchase agreement with Ravello Investment Group (RIG) over all of the shares in Tigris Eurasia Madencilik Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Şirketi.
That subsidiary holds the firm's exploration and mining licences with respect to the Pertek project, its exploration database for Turkey, and other assets of its former operations in Turkey.
Meanwhile, copper miner Weatherly International (LON:WTI) has been granted a deferral to the start of repayments of the loan that built its mine at Tschudi in Namibia.
Lender Orion, which is also Weatherly’s largest shareholder, has agreed to extend the deadline beyond 30 November with talks now underway between the two companies.
SeaEnergy (LON:SEA) said today it had agreed a £1mln working capital loan for 12 months to help it battle the impact of the slide in oil prices.
Business has slowed as oil majors have cut back and revenue in 2015 is now expected to be between £2.6 and £2.8mln, resulting in a significant loss.
Aggregated Micro Power Holdings (LON:AMPH) has secured additional funds to expand its biomass boiler business after AMPIL, its related special purpose vehicle, completed another financing round.
AMPIL has raised £5.7mln, taking its total loans to £12.4mln, which Aggregated can use to increase its biomass boiler portfolio to generate development fees.
Meanwhile, defence technology group Cohort (LON:CHRT) has landed a £9.7mln contract to provide training and exercise support to the UK Ministry of Defence.
The two-year deal is with Cohort’s subsidiary SCS, which has carried out the role since 2000, winning the last five consecutive competitive tenders.