KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 — Shares on Bursa Malaysia opened higher today on stronger buying support for oil and gas companies following the overnight rebound in global oil prices.

At 9am, the benchmark FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) was 1.59 points better at 1,635.03, compared with yesterday’s close of 1,633.44.

Market breadth was positive with gainers outpacing losers 175 to 49, with 111 counters unchanged, 1,405 untraded and 18 others suspended.

Turnover amounted to 84.64 million shares worth RM34.39 million.

A dealer said global benchmark Brent crude oil futures increased 2.4 per cent to US$31.03 a barrel yesterday, compared with its 12-year low of US$29.73 a barrel previously.

Oil and gas companies were the top gainers in the early session as Petron and Petronas Dagangan’s shares rose 20 sen each to RM6.60 and RM24.20 respectively, followed by Shell, up 19 sen to RM5.86.

Leading the top losers’ list, Petronas Gas went down 10 sen to RM21.50, while QL Resources lost 5.0 sen to RM4.54 and SWS Capital declined 4.0 sen to RM1.26.

Among heavyweights, Maybank eased 2.0 sen to RM8.33, TNB added 2.0 sen to RM13.08, Public Bank gave up 4.0 sen to RM18.20 and Petronas Chemicals was flat at RM6.98.

Among actives, Nexgram and Bioalpha remained unchanged at 9.0 sen and 35.5 sen respectively, while Instacom added half-a-sen to 28.5 sen.

On the scoreboards, the FBM Emas Index was 14.74 points higher at 11,463.16, the FBMT100 Index increased 15.64 points to 11,135.39 and the FBM Emas Shariah Index rose 23.38 points to 12,420.19.

The FBM Ace perked 46.14 points to 6,294.53 and the FBM 70 was 18.6 points better at 12,930.15.

On a sectoral basis, the Finance Index eased 1.27 points to 13,727.57, the  Plantation Index expanded 25.89 points to 7,538.78 and the Industrial Index lost 1.49 points to 3,158.93. — Bernama