Investing.com - British blue-chip shares edged modestly lower on Wednesday, holding near multi-week peaks as a sharp retreat in global crude prices dragged on heavy-weight energy producers, offsetting gains across homebuilders and industrial miners.

The FTSE 100 slipped 0.1%. While softening raw material costs provided relief to consumer-facing sectors, it weighed directly on index heavyweights Shell and BP. Both oil majors fell over 1.5% each.

The cautious baseline follows a strong session for domestic equities, which had drawn support from the UK government’s newly unveiled £10 billion social housing program aimed at boosting low-cost construction nationwide.

The primary microeconomic drag on the London benchmark was a 2% drop in global oil benchmarks, driven by reports that Iran and Oman have resumed bilateral talks to manage and potentially reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The sudden prospect of restored maritime transit helped ease immediate supply fears, pushing Brent crude futures down toward $86 a barrel and triggering profit-taking across energy majors.

Despite these domestic headwinds, broader equity sentiment drew support from a rally in industrial metals.

Copper prices surged to a six-month high amid dwindling London Metal Exchange (LME) inventories, providing an operational tailwind to mega-cap miners like Rio Tinto PLC and Anglo American PLC, even as gold prices eased slightly ahead of upcoming U.S. inflation data.

Hochschild Mining surged 6.4% after the London-listed precious metals miner after its first-half adjusted EBITDA more-than-doubled.