Energy-based stocks maintained the London market’s pre-Christmas rally today after benefiting from a rebound in the price of oil.
Comments from Saudi petroleum minister Ali Naimi that he was certain the oil market would recover with the improvement of the global economy helped the price of Brent crude rally to just below 63 US dollars a barrel.
This provided a much-needed boost to Royal Dutch Shell, which lifted 3% or 61p to 2283.5p, whilst BP added 2% or 9.2p to 422.2p.
The FTSE 100 Index improved 53.1 points to 6598.5 as the top flight built on its best week in three years, buoyed by indications that the US Federal Reserve is in no hurry to raise interest rates.
Other stocks on the front foot included Asia-facing banking giant Standard Chartered with a gain of 17.5p to 944.5p.
B&Q owner Kingfisher rose 3.7p to 327.9p after it sold a 70% stake in its loss-making China business to Beijing-based Wumei Holdings for £140 million.
The company opened its first store in China in 1999 and now has 39 outlets and employs over 3,000 staff but sales fell by 7.6% to £163 million in the first half of this year due to the impact of a slowing Chinese property market.