SINGAPORE - Oil and gas stocks have been performing better in the past week as prices were lifted by the recent rally of oil prices, Singapore Exchange said in its latest My Gateway report on Thursday (Feb 5).

In the first three trading days of February - between Feb 2 and Feb 4 - offshore service providers listed on SGX have eked out a 0.5 per cent gain, while oil and gas exploration and production stocks averaged a 2.2 per cent increase.

This came as Brent futures rallied 2 per cent in the same period to around US$54.16 per barrel, SGX noted. Oil prices have recovered some 20 per cent since hitting a low on Jan 13.

There are 32 offshore service providers listed on the SGX with a combined market cap of $8.49 billion. The oil price slide since June last year has seen some of the key plays such as Keppel Corp, SembCorp Marine and Ezion taking heavy losses towards the year-end before stabilising after the New Year.

But the three best performers of the bunch were Charisma Energy Services, Sinwa and Civmec. Engineering service provider Charisma Energy Services grew 8 per cent in the month to date to 2.7 cents. Sinwa, a shipping and logistics operator, also jumped 8 per cent so far this week to 27 cents. Civmec, which focuses on servicing Australian resource sectors, also went up 6.1 per cent in the week so far to close at 70 cents on Wednesday.

Over in the exploration and production sector, 10 companies were listed here to combine a $2.3 billion market cap. The best gainer in lieu of the recent oil rally was Alpha Energy Holdings, which jumped 10.2 per cent in the month to date to close at 20.5 cents on Wednesday. Alpha Energy was formerly JK Tech, which switched its focus to energy only in May last year.

RH Petrogas also went up 5.3 per cent to 39.5 cents, while REX International gained 2.6 per cent also to 39.5 cents at Feb 4's market close.