LNG Liquefied Natural Gas Limited

Rising oil prices boosted Australian shares, which rose to their highest levels since August on Wednesday, but trading was choppy elsewhere in the region.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200, which is heavily weighted by commodity-linked and financial stocks, was last up 0.8% at 5382.60. BHP Billiton Ltd. soared 3.6% and Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. gained 2.8%.

The overall benchmark was headed for its fifth straight day of gains.

Elsewhere, markets were mixed as investors assessed the region's substantial rally since February. The Hang Seng Index was off 0.5%, even though the energy sector was up 0.5%. South Korea's Kospi was down 0.3%. Both the Nikkei Stock Average and Shanghai Composite Index were up about 0.6%.

The Philippine peso weakened slightly from the previous day, when it had jumped about 1% against the U.S. dollar after preliminary results showed controversial politician Rodrigo Duterte far ahead of his main rivals in the presidential elections, making it all but certain the 71-year-old crime-busting mayor of Davao city will take office next month. The peso may have been boosted by Mr. Duterte's indications that he could ease restrictions on foreign investments.

The local currency was last down 0.1% against the U.S. dollar at 46.70 pesos to a dollar.

Shares on the benchmark PSE were up 2.9%, shrugging off news of a sharp decline in exports—the country's exports in March fell by 15.1% from a year earlier.

Overnight, U.S. oil prices rose 2.8% to $44.66 per barrel on expectations that supply outages from Canada to Nigeria would help alleviate a global glut of crude. U.S. stocks rallied on Tuesday, helped by oil prices which drove major U.S. indexes to their biggest gains since March. That that helped lift Asia in its morning.

In China, shares were choppy amid worries that authorities might curb credit, which could weaken appetite for trading, according to analysts.

"Investors are worried that the new loans figures in April may be weaker than expected," says Zheng Chunming, an analyst at Capital Securities. Huatai Securities estimates that China will add 550 billion-650 billion yuan ($84.4 billion-$100 billion) of new loans in April, compared with the 1.37 trillion yuan added in March. Official data on new loans is expected in the coming days.

Meanwhile, China's metals futures market stabilized Wednesday after week-long sell-offs in iron ore and steel rebar.

The October steel rebar futures contract traded in Shanghai reversed a six-session loss, gaining 1.2% at 2,149 yuan a metric ton, while iron ore futures edged up 0.4% at 386 yuan a ton.

Metals futures prices have suffered a massive drop since April 22, when exchanges in Shanghai and Dalian began to raise margin requirements and transaction fees to forestall excessive volatility in the mainland commodities market.

In Tokyo, shares of SoftBank Group jumped 4.5%, after the telecom and Internet giant said the previous day that its revenue increased by 7.6% from a year earlier to 9.2 trillion yen ($84 billion) for the fiscal year ended in March, and that its operating profit rose 8.8% to 999 billion yen.

Yifan Xie, Gregor Stuart Hunter, Kosaku Narioka, and Trefor Moss contributed to this story.

Write to Chao Deng at Chao.Deng@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 11, 2016 00:55 ET (04:55 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.