Energy stocks turned solidly higher Wednesday afternoon, with the NYSE Energy Sector Index climbing 1.0% while the SPDR Energy Select Sector ETF (XLE) was up 0.8%.
West Texas Intermediate crude oil settled $2.16 higher at $80.36 per barrel while Henry Hub natural gas futures fell $0.30 to $6.93 per 1 million BTU.
In company news, Recon Technology (RCON) added 4.1% after the oilfield-services company said Wednesday that its Nanjing Recon Technology subsidiary has received a new, two-year contract valued at around 6.7 million Chinese renminbi ($948,257) to provide automation control and instrumentation maintenance services for a natural gas generation plant operated by an unnamed energy producer.