Sector movers: Oil and gas stocks lead London market higher

Oil and gas and mining stocks ensured Thursday trading in London ended on a marginally positive note.

The FTSE 100 rose 0.18% or 10.86 points to end at 6,072.47, while the FTSE 250 was up 0.48% or 80.63 points at 16,763.65 as oil futures rallied after fears over China appeared to ease up.

At 1452 BST, the Brent front-month futures contract was trading 2.75% or $1.33 higher at $49.70 a barrel reversing losses posted stateside on Wednesday. Concurrently, the WTI was up 3.86% or $1.74 at $46.83 a barrel.

Analysts at Barclays expect a moderation in Chinese oil demand growth over the fourth quarter, but not a slump as feared by some, as opportunistic storage-linked buying by Beijing “to fill commercial and strategic reserves could still provide support” to the oil price.

Both oil and gas blue chips BP (up 2.47%) and Royal Dutch Shell ('b' shares up 2.43%) posted appreciable rises to end up among the FTSE 100’s biggest risers. On the FTSE 250, Tullow Oil (up 9.64%) and Ophir Energy (up 5.95%) led the midcap charge.

Meanwhile copper futures recovered in the face of production cuts, up from a six-year low of $4,955.00 per metric tonne on Tuesday, to $5,166.50 past the midway point of Thursday’s trading, up 1.7% intraday, on the London Metal Exchange.

Major LME three-month futures contracts were also in positive territory, including primary aluminium (up 1.0%), lead (up 0.2%), nickel (up 3.5%), tin (up 0.5%) and zinc (up 1.3%). Subsequently, BHP Billiton (up 2.39%) and Kaz Minerals (up 5.32%) were in the risers club.

However, it was the London Stock Exchange Group that led the FTSE 100 risers after Barclays upgraded sharemarket organiser and transaction services provider Deutsche Boerse from underweight to overweight. Elsewhere, supermarket shares corrected lower on Thursday following a spike in the previous session on positive broker notes.