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BROKER SPOTLIGHT: Cairn drill plans excite Deutsche Bank

One piece of research, from the top-ranked oil team at Deutsche Bank, did catch the eye.
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Mr Bull and Mr Bear appear to have gone on holiday.
From the paucity of research received this morning it seems most of the City’s number crunchers are on vacation.
There wasn’t upgrade or downgrade worthy of mention in the first pass. One piece of research, from the top-ranked oil team at Deutsche Bank, did catch the eye.
It was a preview of next Tuesday’s interims from Cairn Energy (LON:CNE) – though the numbers are likely to play second-fiddle to an update on its exploration plans.
For as Deutsche points out, the second-half-weighted programme could be transformational.
It said the timing and drilling locations for three wells in Senegal could be unveiled. While they are in deep waters off the coast of west Africa, they aren’t technically challenging, the broker says.
In fact each could be drilled in as little as 40 days. The work will help give a more accurate resource estimate. Currently, experts say the discovery could contain anywhere from 155-670mln barrels of oil.
Deutsche is also expecting a little more ‘visibility’ on the £1bn (US$1.6bn) tax dispute with Indian authorities that continues to rumble on in the background.
Financially, the bank’s analysts reckons Cairn has been in cash preservation mode, and estimates it has around £750mln on the balance sheet – the equivalent to half its current market capitalisation.
“This supports our view that the shares continue to misprice the substantial option value that Senegal and Cairn India offer, which is fully funded from the strongest balance sheet in the sector,” Deutsche said in a note to clients, repeating its ‘buy’ advice and 225p a share price target.
Currently, the stock is changing hands for 153p.
Elsewhere, and as already mentioned, it was thin pickings. There were target price increases for TUI (LON:TUI) from Morgan Stanley Cazenove (£12.85 from £12.75) and Jefferies (£11.60 from £11) after results. Their recommendations remain respectively ‘overweight’ and ‘neutral’.
Jefferies was a little more enthused about the potential of civil engineer Balfour Beatty (LON:BBY) as it raised its price target to £3 from £2.70 and repeated its ‘buy’ advice.
And finally, you wonder what Tesco (LON:TSCO) has done to upset Goldman Sachs – other than the obvious – as the Wall Street bank restated its ‘sell’ this morning alongside its 190p a share price target.