Enquest (LON:ENQ) and Cairn Energy (LON:CNE) got credit for their newly increased stake in the Kraken oil field development project, as JP Morgan Cazenove lifted its targets for the partners.
The London listed oil firms yesterday confirmed they would absorb the interests of former partner First Oil, which ran into financial trouble and failed to meet cash calls in January and February.
Enquest gained an additional 10.5% of Kraken, by waiving its right to claim $7mln against First Oil, while Cairn got an extra 4.5% of the project for waiving $3mln.
It leaves just Enquest and Cairn in the project, with 70.5% and 29.5% respectively.
JP Morgan this morning increased its target price for Enquest to 52p from 46p and repeated a ‘neutral’ recommendation, while it repeated an ‘overweight’ rating for Cairn and lifted its target to 175p from 170p.
Peel Hunt upgraded its recommendation for property group Helical Bar (LON:HLCL) to ‘add’ from ‘hold’. Meanwhile, it downgraded sector peer Capital & Counties Properties (LON:CAPC) to ‘reduce’ from ‘hold’.
RBC Capital upgraded British engineer WS Atkins (LON:ATK) to ‘outperform’ from ‘sector perform’ and set a 1,400p target, which suggests some 9.5% upside to the current price of 1,267p.