Cannacord Genuity still sees Ophir Energy as strong value play

Analysts at Cannacord Genuity trimmed their target price on Ophir Energy to reflect its recent disappointing update to investors and increased regulatory/legal risk in Tanzania.

However, they continued to believe the shares were a "strong" value play, helped by the fact that it had the strongest balance sheet in its sector, with anticipated net cash at $85m as of year-end 2017.

The company had cut its production guidance for 2017 to 12,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, from a range of between 12,150 to 13,500 boepd before, due to lower off-take at Sinphuhorm a slower ramp-up at Kerendan in the frst half.

A final investment decision at its Fortuna FLNG project offshore Equitorial Guinea had also been pushed into the backhalf of the year.

Recent royalty increases on miners in Tanzania also led Canaccord to be more cautious, lowering the NPV 10 central value for the company's gas resources in the African country from 94p per share to 88p a share.

Second half 2017 on the other hand should see better results on the back of production improvements and in-fill drilling at Bualuang, the analysts said.

Ophir had also announced measures to lower its Selling, General & Administrative costs by about $10-12m after restructuring costs of $7m.

Exploration would also be restrained at least until Fortuna came onstream in 2020.

Hence, the Canadian broker lowered its target price on the stock from 95.0p to 90.0p but stayed at 'buy'.