Oil firms were the standout risers among London’s blue chips early on.
The price of crude oil rebounded to US$76 a barrel overnight on fresh hopes that the OPEC cartel will trim output when it meets next week.
Strong US data also lifted crude, ending a three day losing streak.
Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) led London’s risers early on, up 16p to 493p. BG Group (LON:BG.) added 14p to 1059 and Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSA) jumped 24p higher to 2277p.
Rolls-Royce (LON:RR.) waited until the end of the week to announce it had won a won a US$5bn order from Delta Air Lines to supply engines to 50 Airbus planes. Shares climbed 6p higher at 850p.
Miners were rallying with silver specialist Fresnillo (LON:FRES) climbing to the top of the board early on, up 12p to 737p.
Platinum miner Anglo American (LON:AAL) was 11p higher at 1304p, while Randgold Resources (LON:RR.) added 55p to 4390p.
Overall, the FTSE100 was 36 points higher at 6,715, a rise of 0.55%.
Royal Mail (LON:RMG) was one of the heaviest fallers, down 6p to 435p. The firm is in a fight with Amazon, which is eating into its parcel delivery service.
British Gas owner Centrica (LON:CNA) dipped 2p to 291p following a downgrade to ‘underweight’ status by JP Morgan Cazenove.
The firm issued a profit warning yesterday as warmer weather meant more homeowners kept their heating off.
In the junior space, shares in cloud computing company Outsourcery (LON:OUT) have taken off after it was named as a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider.
The company, co-led by Dragon’s Den star Piers Linney has been named as one of a handful of firms in the UK which will be able to bill, manage and support Office 365. Shares rose 36% on Friday to 20p.
Asia-based data centre service provider CSF Group (LON:CSFG) jumped 0.25p to 2.3p after it made less of a loss (£1.2mln) than last year (£1.6mln).
Ormonde (LON:ORM) has been granted a mining concession for its flagship Barruecopardo tungsten project in Salamanca, Spain. Share jumped 6% to 4.5p.
There was some respite for investors in troubled outsourcer Quindell (LON:QPP), which added 14% this morning to 61p. The firm has been through a maelstrom of trials and accusations this year.
Tangiers Petroleum (LON:TPET) lost 0.15p to 0.6p. Earlier in the week it said it is swapping the warm waters off Morocco for the frozen wastes of America’s most northerly state Alaska for its next major project.