London open: Lloyds leads the rise after review

Lloyds Banking Group was the high riser of the morning after revealing the details of its strategic review. The Footsie opened up near the 5,900 mark, a level not seen since the start of the month.Lloyds, the part-nationalised high street behemoth, is aiming to shed a further 15,000 jobs and cut its presence in foreign markets by half. The announcement today comes as part of a review of the business by its new Chief Executive, António Horta-Osório. Other notable aims include an investment programme in new IT systems. This combined with the job cuts is likely to cost £2.3bn. Shares jumped by 7% early on.Other banks were in demand also, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays.BG Group, the FTSE-100 gas and oil company, rose strongly after it doubled the estimate of how much oil there might be in its Santos Basin site, 300 km off the coast of Brazil. Oil peers BP and Royal Dutch Shell were also higher.Oilfield services firm Wood Group said on Thursday that it has seen good growth in the year to date and expects full-year numbers to be in line with expectations. Shares edged upwards after the open.Sector peer Petrofac, however, bucked the sector trend despite saying that it is on course to deliver its target of at least 15% like-for-like net profit growth in 2011.No news was good news for ground engineering specialist Keller on Thursday, as the company said there had been no significant changes to the group's trading or outlook since it issued a profits warning in May. BCFTSE 100 - RisersLloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 47.71p +6.84%BG Group (BG.) 1,427.50p +5.74%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 38.13p +3.73%Barclays (BARC) 253.40p +1.66%Aviva (AV.) 433.90p +1.19%BP (BP.) 453.80p +0.99%Standard Life (SL.) 207.00p +0.88%Investec (INVP) 500.50p +0.87%Vedanta Resources (VED) 2,049.00p +0.84%Old Mutual (OML) 131.50p +0.84%FTSE 100 - FallersARM Holdings (ARM) 585.00p -1.60%ICAP (IAP) 475.90p -0.61%Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,536.00p -0.58%Serco Group (SRP) 550.00p -0.45%Autonomy Corporation (AU.) 1,687.00p -0.41%Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,177.00p -0.34%Fresnillo (FRES) 1,411.00p -0.28%ITV (ITV) 71.75p -0.28%Intertek Group (ITRK) 1,982.00p -0.25%Rolls-Royce Group (RR.) 633.00p -0.24%