Chinese Whispers Weigh on FTSE

The news that inflation in China is running at a faster pace than expected gave investors the jitters on Thursday morning as fears that the Beijing authorities may impose tighter fiscal policies resurfaced. The price of crude oil fell below $82 a barrel, retreating from an 8-week high, as a result and, approaching midday, the FTSE 100 was down 0.18% to 5,630.65 points.

Dominic Turner
shareprices.com - Thursday, March 11, 2010

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BP

Oil heavyweight BP announced that it will pay Devon Energy – an Oklahoma-based oil and gas exploration and production company – $7 billion for 10 exploration blocks in Brazil, seven of which are in the prolific Campos basin and other assets in Azerbaijan and the Gulf of Mexico. BP also said that it will sell a 50% stake of its interests in the undeveloped Kirby oil sands project in Alberta, Canada, to Devon for £500 million. The news could not lift BP's share price, however, which was marginally down at 621.8p, a loss of 3.1p, or 0.5%.

FTSE 100 rival BG made an oil discovery 15 miles, or so, northeast of the Snorre field, off the coast of Norway, according to the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) on Thursday. The NPD did not reveal the prospective size of the discovery, but the license for the well is actually shared by BG Norge AS, Wintershall (part of the German BASF group), Petoro (wholly owned by the Norwegian Government) and the British company, Premier Oil, which is a constituent of the FTSE 250. BG's share price actually fell 9.5p, or 0.79%, to 1,186p, but Premier Oil fared rather better, gaining 27p, or 2.37%, to 1,165p

 

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