FTSE Dominance Beckons for Oil and Gas

THE oil and gas sector is set to depose the financial sector as the most valuable on London’s FTSE index within months of Royal Dutch Petroleum merging with Shell Transport and Trading on July 20.

Shareholders meet on Tuesday to vote on whether to merge the two companies, setting in motion a process that index analysts expect to lead to the first change in the top FTSE sector since banks jumped in front of telecoms as the technology bubble burst in 2000.

It will be the first time the oil and gas sector has been dominant, as measured by today’s FTSE classifications, since it held thrall in the 1980s.
The Business Online