Many recent oil exploration minnows have been making waves in the Falklands islands, but Faroe Petroleum is having success closer to home.
The UK oil and gas explorer has announced a new discovery in the Norwegian North Sea, on its 15% owned Butch prospect. It said it had found light oil in good quality reservoir sands, and will continue drilling operations to gather further data. This is the company's second successful exploration well this year, and the news has pushed the company's shares 15p higher to 159p. RBS analyst James Gardiner said:
This latest successful result vindicates Faroe's technical capability, which we think is differentiated from that of competition. The company has a fully funded exploration programme through to 2013 and plans to commence drilling the T-Rex and Kalvklumpen wells offshore Norway at the end of October and in November, respectively. We reiterate our buy recommendation and 220p price target.
Away from oil, one of the day's fallers is drug delivery company Skyepharma, down 4.25p to 48p following news that it would take longer than expected to get European approval for its Flutiform asthma treatment. Skyepharma and its partner Mundipharma had hoped for approval by Monday, but with no consensus among all member states in time, there is no a referral process which could last 90 days.
