By Rebekah Curtis

LONDON (Reuters) - European shares edged up at midday on Thursday, buoyed by energy shares as Royal Dutch Shell's results cheered the sector and HBOS helped lift banks after posting figures free of nasty surprises.

Lender HBOS rose 7.5 percent after its results beat expectations.

Deutsche Bank gained 0.3 percent. Its shares fell earlier after the bank said it made a further $3.6 billion (1.8 billion pounds) of writedowns in the second quarter, taking its bill from the global financial crisis beyond $11 billion.

Among energy shares, BP rose 2.5 percent and Total put on 1.8 percent. Shell, which gave back earlier gains to trade little changed, reported a 5 percent rise in second-quarter current cost of supply (CCS) net income to $7.9 billion, and said it beat analysts' forecasts, on high oil prices.

At 11:52 a.m. the pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index was up 0.3 percent at 1,184.37 points.

But a slew of downbeat results from other companies and rising inflation data kept gains on a leash.

French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis was the biggest individual drag on the index, down 4.7 percent after its quarterly sales and profit disappointed investors and after giving a modest upgrade to its full-year EPS forecast, now seen up 8 percent.

BT Group tumbled 14.4 percent after it just missed estimates for first-quarter core earnings and worried investors with key indicators such as its free cash outflow and margins.