FTSE buoyed by oils as crude rises

By Michael Taylor

LONDON (Reuters) - The blue-chip share index ended 0.6 percent higher on Friday, boosted by oil companies tracking rising energy prices, while fellow heavyweight stock Vodafone (VOD.L) headed lower.

The FTSE 100 .FTSE climbed 35.4 points to 5,636.6, making for an advance of 4.2 percent in August, but is still down 12.7 percent for the year to date.

Oil stocks led gainers as U.S. crude prices rose above $117 a barrel as Tropical Storm Gustav was poised to enter the Gulf of Mexico, raising concerns about its impact on U.S. offshore oil and gas output.

BP (BP.L), BG Group (BG.L), Cairn Energy (CNE.L) and Tullow Oil (TLW.L) added 1.2-4.2 percent.

Oil and gas services firm Petrofac (PFC.L) topped the FTSE 100 leaderboard however, up 5.1 percent. The company said it has bought production technology firm Caltec for a maximum 30 million pounds.

Ukrainian iron ore miner Ferrexpo (FXPO.L) added 3.6 percent one day after it said it was considering returning excess cash to shareholders.

On the downside, mobile phone giant Vodafone shed 1.3 percent after negative broker comment on Thursday and as jointly its owned South African mobile operator Vodacom agreed to buy most of African network and satellite services firm Gateway for $700 million including debt.

Also in the red, Enterprise Inns (ETI.L) slipped 3.6 percent, hit by an investment rating downgrade by Landsbanki to "reduce" from "hold" and initiation as "underperform" by Credit Suisse in two negative reviews of the UK pubs sector.