LONDON (ShareCast) - Shares in IPSA fell by a quarter after the Southern Africa-focused power generation group said that Sasol Gas, the South African gas producer and supplier, is suing IPSA’s subsidiary Newcastle Cogeneration, for about £4m.

IPSA said the sum relates to penalties incurred as a result of a plant not running due to delays in concluding a power purchase agreement.

African conglomerate Lonrho moved into profit in the year to September 30 after seeing strong growth in existing businesses and making several acquisitions.

Pre-tax profits totalled £0.5m, against a loss of £5.9m the previous year, on revenues that climbed to £107.8m.

‘We are seeing growing demand for our core services across all the seventeen countries in which Lonrho operates,’ said chairman David Lenigas.

‘Africa is making real progress, stimulated by a population that has reached one billion people and the booming oil and mineral industries that are driving economic growth and the concerns about global food shortages that are stimulating the agriculture sector.’

The share price of Speymill shot up after the property services business said it had agreed a reduced interest rate of 9% against 12% previously on a loan from two of its directors.

It also announced an increase in committed projects at its subsidiary Speymill Contracts, which now has a forward order book of £18m.

Flavour and fragrance ingredients group Treatt posted a rise in profits in the year to September 30 as sales recovered from January.

Pre-tax profits rose to £4.5m from £3.5m the previous year on revenue that rose to £63.3m from £56.3m.

‘Towards the end of the 2009 financial year there was a weakening of demand and this trend continued into the first quarter of the 2010 financial year,’ the company said.

‘However, in January 2010 demand began to recover and sales of the group's products rose sharply across the broad range of new and existing customers, reaching record levels in terms of both volumes and value in the third quarter.’

Valiant Petroleum suffered another setback after it found the Don Southwest 'H' Panel exploration well (211/18a-28) to be a dry hole.

The John Shaw semi-submersible drilling rig will now move to the Don Southwest field to drill the initial well of the Phase III programme with a pilot hole into Area 'E' - an exploration target which Valiant currently estimates could contain gross resources of 7-10 million barrels of oil. Results are expected by the end of January.

Beowulf Mining, which has ten exploration projects in Northern Sweden primarily prospecting for iron, copper, gold and uranium, lost £320,000 in the nine months ended 30 September, up from £319,000 a year ago.

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