By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Shares in Europe advanced modestly on Tuesday, helped by further gains for oil and gas producers and as technology stocks followed Asian peers higher. The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index (ST:SXXP 250.88, +1.31, +0.53%) rose 0.4% to 250.59, building on strong gains from the previous session. On Monday the index jumped 1.6% in its biggest one-day rise since the start of December as oil and gas companies performed strongly. Royal Dutch Shell (UK:RDSA 1,862, +26.50, +1.44%) (RDS.A 59.24, +1.17, +2.01%) shares rose 1% on Tuesday while Cairn Energy (UK:CNE 328.70, -2,860, -89.70%) jumped another 10.5%, extending gains from Monday when it announced plans to drill offshore Greenland. Read more on Cairn. Crude-oil futures were up 22 cents at $73.94 a barrel in electronic trading. Investors are gearing up for no change in production quotas from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday. See full story. On a regional level, the U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX 5,329, +34.88, +0.66%) rose 0.6% to 5,323.81, the German DAX index (DX:DAX 5,953, +22.14, +0.37%) climbed 0.3% to 5,948.38 and the French CAC-40 index (FR:PX1 3,891, +18.68, +0.48%) advanced 0.4% to 3,888.05. U.S. stock futures were pointing to another day of gains on Wall Street and Asian shares were higher, helped by gains for the technology sector. See Asia Markets. European technology firms were also strong on Tuesday, with German chip maker Infineon Technologies (DE:IFX 3.76, +0.04, +1.08%) up 1.9% and Franco-Italian rival STMicroelectronics (FR:STM 6.14, +0.10, +1.59%) up 1.5%. In Amsterdam, shares of Dutch sports-car manufacturer Spyker (NL:SPYKR 2.21, +0.16, +7.80%) rose 8.7% after it said it will give General Motors Co. (MTLQQ 0.51, -0.03, -5.41%) more time to decide on its latest offer to buy Saab. The company on Sunday had extended its deadline offer to 5 p.m. Eastern time on Monday. See full story. Other auto makers performing well included Renault (FR:RNO 35.23, +0.53, +1.53%) , up 1.7%, and BMW (DE:BWM 86.00, 0.00, 0.00%) , up 1.3%. Shares of Sky Deutschland (DE:SKYD 2.11, +0.03, +1.44%) rose 2.4%. The satellite-television firm said late Monday that its major shareholder News Corp., will increase its stake in the firm to 45.4% from 39.96%, raising between 110 million euros and 120 million euros for the firm. The firm also narrowed its guidance for an adjusted operating loss of between 255 million euros and 265 million euros in 2009. It was previously looking for an EBITDA loss of between 250 million euros and 270 million euros. News Corp. also owns MarketWatch, the publisher of this report.

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