Oil company shares are showing signs of recovery as the crude price stabilised after its recent slump.
Brent crude has edged up 0.65% to $64.66 a barrel, and the sector was also helped by a positive update from oil services business Wood Group.
Wood said it expected its 2014 performance to be better than last year and in line with expectations, and believed it would be relatively resilient next year helped by its reimbursable order book - which should protect it from any cost overruns - and long term contracts. The sector has been under pressure on fears that oil companies would cut investment if the low oil price makes projects increasingly uneconomic.
The company also announced a $750m five year contract with BP for engineering and construction services in Grangemouth in Scotland.
The news has lifted its shares by 16.5p to 579p, while Credit Suisse said the company was its only outperform recommendation in an uncertain sector.
Petrofac, hit hard by the decline in the oil price on Wednesday, has recovered 12p to 729p.
BP is 7.2p better at 406.8p while Royal Dutch Shell A shares have risen 24p to £20.59.
Overall the FTSE 100 has edged up 7.6 points to 6507.1 ahead of Russia’s interest rate decision - with the central bank widely tipped to raise borrowing costs in another effort to prevent the relentless slide of the rouble - and news of the latest takeup of the European Central Bank’s offer of cheap loans to eurozone banks, the so-called TLTRO programme. Analysts are concerned that demand will be quite low.
Elsewhere there are still worries about the state of Greece and the prospect of another eurozone crisis following news that the vote for a new president had been brought forward to next week.
Elsewhere Aberdeen Asset Management is down 14.2p at 424.4p as its shares went ex-dividend, while a dip in the gold price has left Randgold Resources 121p lower at £42.50.
Ocado has added 6p to 340p despite fourth quarter sales growth at the online grocer slipping to 14.9% from 15.5p in the previous three months. Average order size fell 1.7% to £109.74. Jefferies said:
Ocado has reported a solid end to fiscal 2013/14, with fourth quarter retail growth of 14.9%, likely implying some growth in market share over the past year. Going forward we continue to see two very conflicting impacts on the stock, with international licensing a clear support, tempered by the risk of a break in the Waitrose relationship.
