Cost of filling up a tank of diesel reaches £100, as oil prices rise back above $80 a barrel again – as it happened

Oil and gas prices have fallen on hopes of a breakthrough in Middle East peace talks, while stock markets have risen.

Oil prices have been volatile, and are now trading lower. Brent crude fell 55 cents or 0.78% to $78.75 a barrel.

However, the cost of filling up a typical tank with diesel has now reached £100, according to the RAC motoring group.

Dutch gas for August fell 6.3% to €52.43 per megawatt hour, while the equivalent British contract dropped 6.7% to 127.3p per therm.

The latest US services survey from the Institute for Supply Management was hailed as a “decent result given resumed tensions in the Middle East last month” by Capital Economics analysts. The headline measure ticked up to 54.1 in July, from 54.0 in June, indicating expansion in service industries.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones rose 1% while the Nasdaq and S&P 500 both rose about 0.3%.

The UK’s FTSE 100 index also climbed 0.3% to 10,912, while the German, French and Italian markets were flat to slightly lower.

In London, Prudential , HSBC and Standard Chartered were among the main fallers on the FTSE 100 index. Prudential shares lost 5.3% after China’s Caixin reported that Chinese mainland tax authorities have started levying personal income tax on returns from offshore insurance policies.

Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care! – JK