(MENAFN- ProactiveInvestors - Australia) Local oil and gas shares trended sideways taking a cue from crude oil futures that remained largely unchanged in Asian trading today.
The S&P/ASX Energy Index was down 33.50 points at 12612.40 points tracking the broader market.
On the big end, Santos (ASX:STO) was down 0.45% to $11.25 a share while its key rival Woodside Petroleum (ASX:WPL) was up a modest 0.14% to trade at 34.61 a share.
Other majors independents such as Origin Energy (ASX:ORG) and Oil Search (ASX:OSH) also had mixed results with Origin up 0.21% to $11.83 a share, while Oil Search was largely flat at $7.05 a share.
The mid-tiers including Beach Petroleum (ASX:BPT), Drill Search (ASX:DLS) and Senex Energy (ASX:SXY) were down. Drill search was down 3.25% at $1.29 a share, while Senex shed 2.3 cents to trade at $0.76 a share.
Beach lost the least, down 1.16% at $1.49 a share.
On the smaller end, top gainers included Norwest Energy up 10.34% at $0.06 a share, Tangiers Petroleum (ASX:TPT) that was up almost 7% at $0.31 a share and MEO Australia (ASX:MEO) up 5.48% at $0.07 a share.
NYMEX benchmark West Texas Intermediate for front month delivery trended sideways in Asian trading, dropping a modest 4 cents from previous close on Friday to trade at US$93.05 a barrel, while ICE Brent futures edged up 10 cents at $111.43 a barrel.
WTI settlement prices last Friday were a 2.5% on week gain and closed just three cents short of the three month high set on Wednesday following the resolution to the budget stalemate in the US.
WTI prices are also likely to see some upside as a major pipeline- the Saway pipeline- that would connect the mid west crude storage to refineries in the Gulf came online during the weekend.
The expanded pipeline would triple volume carried to 400,000 barrels per day from 150,000 barrels.
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