Hardy Oil and Gas has plunged around 35% after a disappointing drilling update from India.
The company said an exploratory well at the D9 Block - where it has a 10% interest with the rest owned by India's Reliance Industries - encountered poor reservoir sands, and it will now be plugged and abandoned.
Its shares have dropped 194p to 352p on the news. RBC Capital Markets said:
As Hardy is not operator and therefore unable to dictate the pace of drilling, we would wait until drilling of the next well is confirmed before considering getting back into the stock. As such, we are downgrading Hardy to underperform from outperform and lower our target price to 250p from 400p.
