Sector movers: Mining, oil and gas stocks lead London lower as Greece spooks investors

Natural resources related stocks were firmly in the red, as concerns over Greece hounded the London market.

At the close of trading, the blue chip FTSE 100 finished 0.54% or 36.98 points lower at 6807.82 with miners taking hits on a day of volatile trading in the commodities sphere. Worries over Chinese imports compounded market misery as the country's refined copper imports fell close to 275,000 tonnes in May, down 12.4% this year, according to official statistics.

On the London Metal Exchange, three-month delivery contracts of primary aluminium (down 1.1%), copper (down 0.8%), lead (broadly flat), nickel (down 1.7%), tin (down 3.2%) and zinc (0.3%) were all trading lower thereby ending a brief rally seen over the last couple of sessions.

Inevitably, mining stocks felt the heat with BHP Billiton ending among the biggest fallers of the day down 2.73% or 37.50p at 1336p. Rival Rio Tinto was not far behind shedding 1.71% or 47.50p at 2733.00p.

Lonmin (down 2.94%), Kaz Minerals (down 2.38%), Vedanta (down 1.78%), Fresnillo (down 1.05%) and Antofagasta (down 0.21%) were the notable fallers on dire day for the sector. Meanwhile, US inventories data reinforced broadly bearish sentiment in the oil markets overnight with stockpiles still at a near record high of 463m barrels and US production coming in 9.6m barrels per day.

Blue chips BP (broadly flat) and Shell (‘a’ shares down 0.82%), along with notable names such as Cairn Energy (down 1.11%), Premier Oil (down 1.33%) and Tullow oil (down 2.51%) summed up the market mood.

Additionally, Moody’s forecast a mixed outlook for oilfield services and engineering stocks noting that those with upstream exploration and production exposure were bound to take a deeper hit. Wood Group (down 0.81%), Amec Foster Wheeler (down 0.12%), Weir Group (down 0.53%) and Lamprell (down 0.78%) all ended the session lower.