Borrowed of HC, called this one right!
Beach is starting to look underpriced
Reg Nelson gets to preside over the release of what should be a bumper result for Beach Petroleum on Wednesday. Thanks to a full year from the Delhi acquisition, the market will be looking for something near the $90 million mark ahead of a charge to $200 million in following years.
That's why analyst Stuart Baker at Morgan Stanley slapped a $2-a-share price target on the stock early last month when Beach was looking nice and strong at $1.43 a share. That Beach has drifted back to $1.145 on Friday - it hit 99c on Black Thursday - reflects the lack of rebound for the stock since the subprime sell-off, plus some disappointment that the BMG oil project in Bass Strait needs remedial work to get to original forecast production levels.
Wednesday's profit report could be the catalyst for the rerating that Baker and others think is now due to Beach, now ranked number four in our listed oil and gas stocks behind Woodside, Santos and Oil Search. Now that Beach has arrived as a sizeable and profitable producer for the long term (20 years-plus), Nelson has cranked up its exploration portfolio.
Four high-impact wells are now slotted to be drilled in the next 15 months. The big Fermat 1 gas target offshore from Portland in Victoria (1200 petajoules in the second quarter of 2008) has been locked in for a while. The new additions (1 in New Zealand's Taranaki Basin and two in the Bass Basin) each have the potential to yield net oil reserves to Beach of more than 20 million barrels of oil.