London's blue chips are off the pace, with the Footsie weighed down by weak oil stocks, but London's junior market is holding its own.
The FTSE 100 was off 70 points, or 1.1%, at 6,103, with the likes of BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC responsible for much of the fall, as the oil price comes off around 0.7%.
The two main Aim benchmarks were little changed; the FTSE AIM 100 was down half a point at 3,337 while the FTSE AIM All-Shares was virtually unchanged at 710.5.
Ascent Resources PLC (LON:AST) was the biggest faller, losing two-thirds of its value at 2p after Cadogan Petroleum PLC (LON:CAD) said it would not be making a bid. Shares in Cadogan dipped 1.3% to 9.75p on the news.
Sector peer Nighthawk Energy PLC (LON:HAWK) tumbled 17.5% to 1.625p after it disclosed it borrowing facilities have been reduced by its banker, reflecting the continued softness of the oil price.
Another big faller was Nakama Group plc (LON:NAK), the recruitment company, which lost around a third of its value after it said turnover for the financial year just ended would be below expectations, partly as a result of a deterioration in the contracting market.
On the bright side, Range Resources Ltd (LON:RRL) added around one-sixth to its market value after revealing the MD 250 well, in Trinidad, has reached target depth ahead of schedule.
It was the first well drilled with the new deep drilling rig under contract to Range, and it unearthed more than an estimated 100 feet of net oil pay.
Also going well was Rare Earth Minerals plc (LON:REM), up 6.4% at 0.5p after it revealed that Macarthur Minerals, in which it owns a 15.5% stake, has made an application for an additional exploration licence in the Eastern Pilbara region of Western Australia, expanding the size of its exploration licence applications to 1,084 square kilometres.
Anglo Pacific Group PLC (LON:APF) was wanted, rising 1.5p to 74p, after it increased its royalty exposure to the high grade anthracite Groundhog project in Canada and settled the outstanding amount owed it from Australian owner Atrum Coal.