Cantor retains 'buy' recommendation on Lansdowne Oil & Gas

Cantor Fitzgerald has kept a ‘buy’ recommendation on Lansdowne Oil & Gas after it announced it will drill the Midleton gas prospect this year.

The broker also retained its target price for the Irish oil & gas explorer at 33p.

Lansdowne announced Monday that PSE Seven Heads, a Kinsale Energy subsidiary, has contracted with Diamond Offshore Drilling to start a well during August this year, using its SEL 4/07 licence.

Kinsale Energy has 80% of the SEL 4/07 licence, while Lansdowne has the rest.

Through the farm-in agreement previously announced, Kinsale Energy will fund 100% of the drilling costs including the survey work.

"In terms of valuation, we ascribe 23.1p per share to an assumed farmed down Barryroe, 18p per share to exploration upside and -8.1p per share for financial items," Cantor said in a note.