Sinopec and PetroChina rose after crude oil prices fell overnight, helping Hong Kong shares close higher Friday.

The blue-chip Hang Seng Index rose 149.13 points, or 0.61 percent, to 24,533.12 after trading between 24,289.85 and 24,585. 78 during the session.

Turnover rose to 85.51 billion HK dollars (10.97 billion U.S. dollars) from Thursday's 64.09 billion HK dollars (8.22 billion U. S. dollars).

Analysts said the local market would likely remain sluggish in the near term due to the uncertain outlook for U.S. stocks and oil prices.

Some 25.78 million PetroChina shares were sold in one block for 289.23 million HK dollars (37.1 million U.S. dollars) at the close of trade.

China Mobile had 343.13 million HK dollars (44.01 million U.S. dollars) worth of shares traded in the last 10 minutes of the session.

Chinese oil refiner Sinopec rose 5.5 percent to 7.86 HK dollars, while PetroChina, which also has refinery operations, gained 4.5 percent to 11.22 HK dollars.

Benchmark crude-oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange extended overnight declines in electronic trading Friday during Asian hours, due to profit-taking by traders in London.

At 0633 GMT, the front-month July NYMEX light, sweet crude oil futures were down 74 cents at 125.88 U.S. dollars a barrel. July Brent crude oil futures on London's ICE futures exchange fell 68 cents to 126.18 U.S. dollars a barrel.

Cathay Pacific rose 3 percent to 16.40 HK dollars, on expectations that lower oil prices would cut the airline's fuel costs.

Heavyweight China Mobile ended 0.1 percent higher at 114.70 HK dollars, extending gains from the previous session.

PCCW, Hong Kong's dominant telecommunications operator, fell 3. 9 percent to 4.90 HK dollars on profit-taking, after soaring 9.4 percent Thursday on the news of its planned reorganization.

(Xinhua News Agency May 31, 2008)