KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 26): Oil and gas (O&G) counters including Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd and Sumatec Resources Bhd dominated Bursa Malaysia's most active list today as crude oil prices rose past US$59 a barrel.

Analysts said expectation of Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) awarding maintenance, construction and modification (MCM) contracts to O&G support service providers also supported O&G-related shares.

"Overall, the whole market has been supported by the good share price of late, while certain stocks that have risen are (expected) beneficiaries from the MCM awards," Affin Hwang Investment Bank Bhd analyst Tan Jianyuan told theedgemarkets.com.

At 4:01pm, Hibiscus gained 4.5 sen to 67.5 sen with some 180 million shares traded. Sumatec rose 0.5 sen to 6.5 sen with about 52 million units transacted.

Hibiscus and Sumatec were Bursa Malaysia's second and ninth most-active stocks respectively.

Tan said the rise in O&G share prices was a result of strong newsflow rather than fundamental improvements. "It's more of the second liners or cheaper stocks that are seeing these gains even though fundamentally, they are still suffering," he said.

Crude oil prices rose past US$59 a barrel. Reuters reported that London Brent crude for November delivery was up 1 US cent at US$59.03 a barrel by 0621 GMT after settling up 3.8% on Monday. Earlier it rose to US$59.49, the highest since July 10, 2015.

It was reported that oil prices took a breather on Tuesday after Brent crude earlier rose to a 26-month high, supported by Turkey's threat to cut crude flows from Iraq's Kurdistan region to the outside world.

The pipeline to Turkey's port of Ceyhan usually pumps between 500,000 and 600,000 barrels per day (bpd). The loss of this supply combined with the 1.8 million bpd of supply cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-OPEC producers has raised concerns of tighter supply.