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Engineered components manufacturer Elektron jumped said it has posted "excellent results" despite the intense increase in commodity prices.

Full year pre-tax profit came in at £1.9m from £513,000 previously on turnover that rose 34% to £35m. Proposed final dividend increase 12.5% to 0.45p per share.

"The current year will be more challenging but we believe that economic turbulence will provide further opportunities for growth through acquisition," it said.

Coal mining and exploration group Polo Resources has acquired a further 10 exploration licenses in the South Gobi Coal Basin, to take its total holding in the area to 24 licenses.

Shares in Sanderson advanced after acquisitions helped the software and IT services business report sharply higher revenues and pre-tax profits and it said that it expected an even stronger trading performance in the second half.

Profits before tax in the six months to 31 March rose to £965,000 from £654,000 over the same period the year before, on revenues that rose to £13m from £8.1m.

"As experienced in previous years, we expect a stronger trading performance in the second half year and current levels of interest in the group's solutions support this view," chairman Christopher Winn said.

Mining tiddler Beowulf saw its shares advance Thursday after an update on drilling at its Ballek joint venture in Sweden.

Agricola Resources, which is earning a 51% interest in the joint venture from Beowulf Mining, revealed it has gained access to old drilling results which indicate that the Lulepotten deposit in the Ballek Copper-Gold-Uranium Joint contains zones of copper-gold mineralisation that may be economically viable to mine.

Agricola plans to carry out further drilling along the Lulepotten mineralised trend prior to preparing a resource estimate.

Europa Oil & Gas said it has been granted planning permission for the drilling of the West Firsby-9 well by Lincolnshire County Council.