The ‘Al Zubarah’, GDI’s jack-up rig under contract to QP. GIS stock yesterday jumped 4.7% to an all-time closing high of QR128.30 and was the main support for Qatar’s benchmark, which added 0.6% and closed above 14,000 points for the first time.

Reuters

Dubai

Gulf International Services (GIS) lifted the Qatar Stock Exchange to a record high yesterday after its unit signed contracts worth QR5.2bn ($1.4bn) to supply drilling rig services to Qatar Petroleum (QP).

The stock jumped 4.7% to an all-time closing high of QR128.30 and was the main support for Qatar’s benchmark, which added 0.6% and closed above 14,000 points for the first time.

Gulf Drilling International, a subsidiary of GIS, will provide two new offshore rigs and two new land rigs, and extend four other contracts, QP said in a statement after trading closed on Monday.

The stock had already doubled in price this year, making it one of the best performers in Qatar, and GIS said in April it expected its net profit to jump at least 33% to above QR900mn this year. Qatar Petroleum said the rig contracts had been previously announced, but local retail investors were still energised by the announcement.

Elsewhere, Dubai’s bourse slipped 0.2% as top developer Emaar Properties fell 1.8%. But Drake and Scull rose 1.5% after announcing it had won a 110mn dirham ($30mn) deal to build a district cooling plant in Qatar.

Another Dubai firm, property developer Deyaar, added 0.8% after saying yesterday it had sold out residential units in the first tower of its new Montrose project and would start sales for the second one later this month.

Abu Dhabi’s index edged down 0.4% after failing to break through the 5,200 point mark. Blue chips First Gulf Bank and Etisalat fell 1.1 and 0.4% respectively.

Egypt’s benchmark continued to retreat from the six-year closing high it hit on Sunday and slid 1.1%. The Cairo index had risen 2.9% in the first week of September.

“Its a normal pull-back after decent gains that the market has seen earlier this month, a minor correction that everybody was waiting for,” said Mohamed Radwan, director of international sales at Pharos Securities in Cairo.

Saudi Arabia’s bourse was nearly flat as key petrochemical and banking stocks showed a mixed performance. The index edged up 0.05% to 11,149 points.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, Kuwait’s index added 0.1% to 7,474 points; Oman’s measure rose 0.3% to 7,515 points, while Bahrain’s index slipped 0.2% to 1,465 points.