Sector movers: Petrofac jumps, oil services stocks up

13th Dec 2011 15:28

Petrofac jumped higher on Tuesday afternoon, providing a lift to the oil equipment, services and distribution sector, with constituents making average gains of 3.89%.The FTSE 100 oilfield services firm rose after saying that it expects to deliver like-for-like (LFL) profit growth in 2011 of at least 20%."We have a strong pipeline of new opportunities ... which, combined with our existing projects, gives us confidence that we can achieve our target of more than doubling our recurring 2010 group earnings by 2015," according to chief executive Ayman Asfari.Meanwhile, according to analysts at Investec, "Petrofac continues to make good progress on all fronts and we maintain our positive stance on the stock. Into the medium term the newly-created Integrated Energy Services (IES) division could offer meaningful growth and returns, within five years this segment could become as large as the whole group was during FY10, in our view." Sector peer Wood Group, Lamprell and AMEC were also on the rise, with the latter being helped higher by a Citi upgrade from sell to buy. Geoscience consulting firm Rock Solid Images jumped 13% after being awarded two reservoir characterisation projects worth $0.8m.Just two sectors were in the red, one being personal goods with luxury brand Burberry providing a drag.BCTop performing sectors so far todayOil Equipment, Services & Distribution 22,488.38 +3.89%Electronic & Electrical Equipment 2,614.12 +3.65%Oil & Gas Producers 8,506.43 +2.70%Mobile Telecommunications 4,103.86 +2.62%Technology Hardware & Equipment 708.80 +2.53%Bottom performing sectors so far todayPersonal Goods 18,860.31 -1.65%Food & Drug Retailers 4,553.56 -0.21%