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Market:	ASX
Sector:	General Mining
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Proactive Investors Australia

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Australian listed energy stocks outperform: Energy Resources, Aurora Oil & Gas, Woodside Petroleum

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 by Angela Kean

The Australian stock market managed to gain back some of the ground it has lost over the past week trading higher on the back of yesterday’s Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to hold interest rates at 4.25%.

The flow on effect from modest gains on U.S. equity markets overnight was witnessed in the Australian market today, with the All Ordinaries closing 18.8 points, or 0.4%, higher to 4,363.7 points and regaining most of yesterday’s losses.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones added 33.15 points, or 0.26%, to 12,878.28 points, the NASDAQ crept 2.09 points, or 0.07%, higher to 2,904.08 points and the S&P 500 gained 0.2% to 1,347.05 points.

Meanwhile, on the ASX, energy stocks were stronger with a rise of 1.6% to 14,037.8 points, while the healthcare sector also rounded the day out with decent gains of 1.2% to 7,869.4 points.

In the energy sector, Energy Resources (ASX: ERA) led the charge up with a 3.45% jump to $1.36 followed by Aurora Oil & Gas (ASX: AUT) which shifted up 2.74% to $3.

Oil and gas heavyweight Woodside Petroleum (ASX: WPL) also gained today with an increase of 2.35% to $35.31, while fellow major Santos (ASX: STO) rose 1.53% to $13.96.

On the coal side, Whitehaven Coal (ASX: WHC) rallied 1.87% to $5.47.

Karoon Gas (ASX: KAR) moved north with a 1.71% gain to $5.33 and Origin Energy (ASX: ORG) rose 1.5% to $13.59.

Meanwhile, of the healthcare stocks, pharmaceutical company Acrux (ASX: ACR) jumped 2.6% to $3.55, while vaccine manufacturer CSL (ASX: CSL) increased 2.15% to $30.44.

Medical service provider Primary Health Care (ASX: PRY) witnessed gains of 1.34% to $3.03 and medical diagnostics company Sonic Healthcare (ASX: SHL) followed suit with a rise of 1.14% to $11.50.

Sigma Pharmaceuticals (ASX: SIP) and global hospital group Ramsay Health Care (ASX: RHC) also made modest gains of 0.86% to $0.58 and 0.54% to $18.58 respectively.

While the materials sector did not perform as strongly as other sectors it still moved up 0.3% to 11,758.8 points.

It was a newsworthy day for the big players, with BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP) posting a US$9.9 billion profit for the first half of the 2012 financial year, driven by record iron ore production from its Western Australian operations and stronger bulk commodity and petroleum product prices.

Despite the news BHP shares fell 0.4% to $37.75.

Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) also had some big news today with the announcement of a US$3.4 billion investment to undertake a major expansion of its Pilbara iron ore operations.

The mining heavyweight will allocate US$2.2 billion to extending the life of the Nammuldi iron ore mine and US$1.2 billion for Cape Lambert port and rail early works.

As a result of this investment, production capacity of 283 million tonnes per annum in the Pilbara is expected to be reached in the second half of 2013.

Rio shares did better with a 1.06% increase to $71.76.

Fellow iron ore major Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) shares also did well, gaining 3.23% to $5.43.

Rare earths player Lynas Corporation (ASX: LYC) jumped 5.44% to $1.45.

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