Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks slipped, paced by oil producers Total SA and BP Plc.

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc fell after the bank's earnings missed analyst estimates. Unilever, the maker of Dove soap and Lipton iced tea, advanced after reporting rising sales.

The Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index dropped 0.3 percent to 286.37 at 8:05 a.m. in London. The Stoxx 50 lost 0.4 percent and the Euro Stoxx 50, a benchmark for the 12 countries using the euro, retreated 0.1 percent.

BP, Europe's biggest oil company, slipped 0.7 percent to 638.5 pence. Total, Europe's largest oil refiner, dropped 1.2 percent to 208.70 euros in Paris.

Both stocks rose yesterday, with Total closing at an all- time high, as oil prices reached a record $62.50 a barrel. Crude- oil futures erased gains after European stock markets closed, and were recently trading at $60.98.

Total today also reported that second-quarter profit climbed 33 percent, bolstered by higher crude prices and wider refining margins. The result met analysts' estimates.

Unilever jumped 2.4 percent to 56.30 euros in Amsterdam. The company said its second-quarter sales rose 1 percent.

``The top-line growth figure is a real confidence booster in our opinion,'' said Delta Lloyd Securities analyst Richard Withagen. He has a ``buy'' rating on the shares.

The company also said second-quarter profit dropped 28 percent as it spent more to develop new products and wrote down the value of its SlimFast products.

Royal Bank of Scotland, the U.K.'s second-largest lender by assets, lost 2 percent to 1669 pence. First-half profit gained 10 percent to 2.53 billion pounds ($4.5 billion), short of the 2.65 billion-pound median estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Central Banks

The Bank of England may reduce its benchmark interest rate for the first time in more than two years today after the U.K. economy grew at the slowest annual pace since 1993 in the second quarter, a survey of economists showed.

The European Central Bank will probably set its benchmark interest rate at 2 percent for a 26th month today as increasing signs of an economic recovery alleviate the need for lower borrowing costs, a survey of economists showed.

In the U.S. yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 13.85 to 10,697.59 and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 0.92 to a four-year high of 1245.04 as oil slipped. The gains came after European markets closed. The Nasdaq Composite Index slipped 1.34 to 2216.81. All three benchmarks had moves of 0.1 percent.

In Asia, the Morgan Stanley Capital International Asia- Pacific Index, which tracks more than 900 stocks in the region, fell 0.3 percent today. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average slipped 0.8 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Margo Towie in Brussels at mtowie@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 4, 2005 03:11 EDT