Europe open: Oil stocks bounce on surprise remarks from Saudi officials

European stocks began the morning on the frontfoot after surprise remarks from Saudi's energy minister overnight reaffirming his support for oil market stability.

As of 0859 GMT the benchmark Stoxx 600 was higher by 0.42% to 375.01, led by a 1.05% rebound for oil & gas stocks.

Germany´s Dax was up 0.28% or 34.07 points at 12,022.86 and the Cac-40 by another 0.10% to 4,983.29.

Khalid al Falih said his country wanted to "assure the market that it is committed and determined to stabilising the global oil market by working closely with all other participating OPEC and non-OPEC producers".

That helped front month Brent crude oil futures bounce 1.28% to $51.58 a barrel on ICE.

Acting as a backdrop, traders were expectant ahead of the US central bank´s policy announcement and follow-up press conference at 1800GMT and 1830 GMT, respectively.

The first exit polls for the Dutch elections were also expected at 2100 GMT.

Commenting on the outlook for the Fed's meeting, Neil Wilson, senior market analyst at ETX Capital, said: "The Fed doesn’t want to be seen to be trailing events and playing catch up, particularly with Donald Trump’s promise of lower taxes, higher spending and deregulation. His first budget is due the day after the Fed meeting and is certainly a major factor – for various reasons still largely unknown – which makes predicting the path of Fed tightening all the harder to predict."

Inflation in France dropped from 1.3% year-on-year pace in January to 1.2% for February, confirming a preliminary estimate and as expected in markets.

Core prices retreated to a 0.2% year-on-year rate of advance after gains of 0.7% in the month before.

Shares of E.On were on the up as the electric utility unveiled asset sales and job cuts to reduce its debt pile.

Italian luxury goods maker Salvatore Ferragamo posted flat core profits and margins for 2016, together with a 4.4% drop in like-for-like sales.

The Corriere della Sera reported the amount of funds required of the government to bail out Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena may be closer to between €5.0bn and €6.0bn, instead of the €6.6bn initially estimated.