Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has seen its full-year earnings slump by more than half due to tumbling crude prices and confirmed it would cut 10,000 jobs.
Shell said on an underlying basis its full-year earnings fell 53% to 10.7 billion US dollars (£7.3 billion), while the job cuts will come as part of its 49 billion US dollar (£34 billion) takeover of gas explorer BG Group approved by shareholders last month.
The FTSE 100 Index lifted 58.4 points to 5893.7, as the Anglo-Dutch oil major jumped by 4% on investors’ twin hopes for the merger and that crude prices will rise later this year.
Germany’s DAX and the Cac 40 in France were both flat.
The pound was two cents down against the euro at 1.30, after the Bank of England slashed its UK growth outlook and kept interest rates on hold once more at 0.5%, as darkening gloom over the global economy pushed further back the prospect of a hike.
The Bank cut its forecast for growth in the UK economy for the next three years, to 2.2% in 2016, 2.4% in 2017 and 2.5% in 2018.
This is down from predictions of 2.5%, 2.7% and 2.6% respectively in its November report.
Sterling was a cent lower against the dollar at 1.45.
In stocks Shell lifted 87p to 1523.5p, while rival BP was up 3%, or 10.2p, to 342.8p.
Drug giant AstraZeneca was one of the biggest fallers in the top flight after it posted a profits warning for this year with its blockbuster anti-cholesterol drug Crestor set to lose its exclusive patent in the US.
The Anglo-Swiss firm, which fought off a £69 billion takeover bid from US rival Pfizer in 2014, said sales will suffer “a single-digit percentage decline“ this coming year.
It also announced that in 2015 the business made a core operating profit of 6.9 billion US dollars (£4.7 billion), down 1% compared to the year before, as a number of cheaper generic drugs entered the US market over the last 12 months.
Shares fell 4% or 183p to 4229p.
Mobile phone giant Vodafone notched up its sixth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, lifted by a strong performance in emerging markets.
The group saw organic service revenue – a closely watched measure of sales – rise 1.4% to £9.2 billion in the three months to the end of December, beating the 1.2% rise in the previous quarter.
Shares slipped 1.7p to 211.3p.
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