Premier surges on bid talk

Premier Oil shares spiked this morning on the back of a story by The Observer's Tim Webb at the weekend that the South Korea's state-controlled oil company KNOC was sizing up a bid for the North Sea oil producer. The shares were up 116p mid-morning, to £19.14, after having lost some earlier gains. The company itself moved to play down the story. Dow Jones Newswires reported CEO Simon Lockett saying: "Given the share price movement, if we had received an approach, we would have to have disclosed it to the stock exchange."