LONDON (MarketWatch) -- European shares climbed in early trading on Monday, with an advance from oil producers underpinning gains at the start of the last week of 2008.
Shares of BP climbed 3.4%, shares of Total rose 2.4% and shares of Royal Dutch Shell advanced 4%.
The gains for the sector followed a bit of a rebound for light sweet crude-oil futures, with the contract recently up $1.90 at $39.62 a barrel.
Gold futures were also stronger, up $16.20 to $887.40 an ounce, and mineral extractors performing well included Rio Tinto up 3.6%, and Anglo American up 3.9%.
Overall, the U.K. FTSE 100 index climbed 2.1% to 4,303.38 while the French CAC-40 index advanced 1.1% to 3,149.98.
The German DAX 30 index which closed for an extra day last week, moved up 1.2% to 4,686.91.
Energy shares also helped U.S. stocks advance on Friday, after crude-oil futures rose for the first time in four days. See Friday's Market Snapshot.
Still, U.S. stock futures retreated Monday, but most Asian markets ended higher. See Asia Markets.
Back with Europe and KBC Group (BE:000356573: news , chart , profile ) shares climbed 2%.
It said that write-downs on its portfolio of collateralized debt obligations will knock around 900 million euros ($1.3 billion) off its fourth-quarter net profit.
The firm said a downgrade of several CDOs by rating agency Moody's Investor Service led to write-downs of 300 million euros. The remainder of the write-down stems from applying the new rating assumptions to its entire CDO portfolio and from the changing value of guarantees written by bond insurers following the downgrade.
Meanwhile, shares of French home builder Kaufman & Broad (FR:012105: news , chart , profile ) rose 5.1%.
The firm has entered into a heads of agreement with all lenders involved in its senior facilities agreement. It expects fiscal-year revenue to fall 15.7% to 1.17 billion euros.
Additionally, data showed that France's gross domestic product grew 0.1% in the third quarter according to the latest estimate from the country's national statistics office Monday.
