Market close: Shares an the rise, led by Refining NZ

BUSIESSDESK: New Zealand shares rose, led by Refining NZ after the nation’s only oil refinery won support from shareholders to upgrade its Marsden Pt plan.

Skellerup Holdings and Hallenstein Glasson paced the advance.

The NZX 50 Index rose 10.83 points, or 0.3%, to 3531.65. Within the index, 24 stocks rose, 12 fell and 14 were unchanged.

Turnover was $101.9 million.

Refining NZ gained 3.6 % to $2.85. The company’s shareholders today approved the board’s plans to spend $365m on an upgrade that was opposed by two of its major oil company owners, Mobil and Chevron, owner of the Caltex brand.

Skellerup Holdings, which manufactures milking equipment and rubber goods, rose 2.7% to $1.50. PGG Wrightson, the nation’s biggest rural services company, gained 2.6%to 39 cents.

Scott Technology climbed 1.9% to $1.65 after announcing plans to team up with ASX-listed XRF Scientific to develop automated systems for Australia’s booming mining sector.

Heritage Gold fell 8.3% to 2.2 cents.

The company has been fined $15,000 and required to pay NZX legal costs of $6158 after the exchange operator identified two breaches of its Listing Rules relating to independent directors and composition of the board audit and remuneration committee.

The company is in the process of raising up to $1.9m in a share purchase scheme as part of a plan to hive off its Talisman Gold mine project as a new entity, and to relist the remainder of Heritage assets under a new vehicle.

Bathurst Resources fell 1.1% to 88 cents.

The mining company has dropped plans for a pipeline to carry coal from the Denniston Plateau to the coast in favour of an aerial system, in a compromise deal that has seen residents of the Fairdown township drop their appeal against Bathurst’s Escarpment mine proposal.

The would-be coking coal miner still faces two other appeals lodged by environmental groups against resource consents granted last year for the open-cut Escarpment project.

OceanaGold rose 1.8% to $2.90. The operator of the Macraes gold field near Dunedin posted a first-quarter loss after it pulled less gold out of the ground and had to contend with a tough foreign exchange environment.

The company made a net loss of $US3.9m, or 0.1 US cents per share, in the three months ended March 31, compared to a profit of $US14.8m, or 0.6 US cents, a year earlier.

Among major stocks, Telecom gained about 1% to $2.615 and Fletcher Building rose 0.2% to $6.20. Contact Energy rose 1.3% to $4.83.

Sky City Entertainment Group, which is hoping to clinch a deal to build Auckland’s conference centre in exchange for more slot machines, fell 0.5% to $3.84.