KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 23): Blue chips opened weaker on Thursday, in line with the cautious regional markets as investors worried about a global economic slowdown due tohigh oil prices and that that the Euro zone could slip into a recession.

At 9.12am, the FBM KLCI was down 3.01 points to 1,557.51. Turnover was 144.99 million shares valued at RM62.78 million. There were 102 gainers, 141 losers and 216 stocks unchanged.

Sentoria, which made its debut on the Main Board, fell 2.5 sen to 82.5 sen. Its offer price to the public was 85 sen while it had placed out shares at 87 sen.

Among the decliners were KL Kepong, falling for the third day after its dividend went ex on Tuesday. It lost 52 sen to RM23.12.

BAT fell 28 sen to RM52.48, Genting PLANTATION []s 23 sen to RM9.02 while Public Banj and HLFG shed six sen each to RM13.62 and RM11.70.

MISC fell 12 sen to RM5.68 after it suffered net loss of RM1.74 billion in the third quarter ended Dec 31, 2011 compared with net profit of RM1.38 billion a year ago due to recognition of one-off provisions totalling RM1.45 billion.

AirAsia gave up six sen to RM3.59 after its fourth quarter earnings fell 56.3% to RM135.66 million when compared with RM311.08 million a year ago as it was impacted by aircraft fuel expenses, which rose to RM475.07 million from RM292.44 million on-year.