BG boss raises more than £1m

BG Group chief executive Frank Chapman has raised more than £1m by selling shares in the oil and gas explorer and producer.

Chapman sold 85,000 shares at £12.80 each, which leaves him with 1.91m shares in BG, which was spun out of British Gas in 1997.

Chapman has been chief executive for 10 years having joined the board at the time of the demerger.

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BG posted earnings of $978m for the three months to September 2010, up from $768m a year earlier. Profit from continuing operations leapt from $818m to $922m, easily beating estimates. Revenue jumped 22% to $4.44bn.

BG thinks there's an extra 2.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) at its oilfields in the Santo Basin offshore Brazil, 34% more than previous estimates. So-called P90 estimates - a low-case resources estimate with a 90% probability of being realised - are put at 8.3bn boe.

Top Director Buys

Aseana Properties Ltd. (ASPL) Director name: Mr Gerald Ong Chong Keng Amount purchased: 570,000 @ $0.50 Value: $285,000

Arden Partners (ARDN) Director name: Mr Howard FlightAmount purchased: 98,000 @ 51.00p Value: £49,980

Arden Partners (ARDN) Director name: Mr Trevor NorrisAmount purchased: 49,000 @ 51.00p Value: £24,990

Arden Partners (ARDN) Director name: Mr Anthony D BartlettAmount purchased: 25,000 @ 51.00p Value: £12,750

Top Director Sells

BG Group (BG.) Director name: Mr Frank ChapmanAmount sold: 85,000 @ 1,280.03p Value: £1,088,026

Berkeley Resources Ltd. (DI) (BKY) Director name: Mr Matt SymeAmount sold: 730,000 @ 113.13p Value: £825,849

Zotefoams (ZTF) Director name: Mr David StirlingAmount sold: 160,389 @ 138.00p Value: £221,337