LONDON (ShareCast) - Shares in Sirius Real Estate dropped sharply after the group warned that its trading performance could be significantly below current market expectations.

Shares in component supplier Avingtrans fell back after reporting today that the downturn in global manufacturing hit sales hard, pushing the firm into losses.

The firm posted a pre-tax loss of £61,000 for the six months to November 30, compared with a profit of £417,000 over the same period the previous year, as revenue dropped to £13.45m from £17.5m.

Diamondcorp reported progress with drilling at its mines in Botswana and South Africa and said the diamond price outlook was improving, but shares in the company, which also said it would raise capital to fund a £4m development at the South African mine, fell back.

Shares in Vialogy climbed after the signal detection technology developer for the oil and gas sector announced another successful well completion, in the Permian Basin in Central Texas.

Porvair rallied after its Microfiltration division won orders worth £500,000 for nuclear filtration gas clean up filters for UK AGR reactors and other development orders.

The filtration and environmental technologies group said the development orders are for US nuclear fuel production and waste handling projects in France.

If successful these could lead to further, much larger orders from 2011, the firm said.

Pan African Resources is lower Wednesday after the gold miner said criminal mining activity increased significantly both in frequency and in severity during the last six months of 2009.

The group, which produces about 100,000 ounces a year, suffered a 4.7% drop in underground production to 45,385 ounces for the half-year after it was forced to shut its Barberton mine in South Africa.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA)was unchanged at £8.6m on revenue up 16.4% to £29m. Spending on security soared 68% to ZAR9.2m.

AMEC has agreed to help UK North Sea oil company Xcite Energy demonstrate the reserves potential of the Bentley field and help bring it into production.

Contractor AMEC will advise on the upcoming Bentley 9/3b-R horizontal test well and provide technical expertise, engineering and project management skills.

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