Barclays cuts Brent oil price forecasts, likes Lundin, Cairn Energy, Ophir

Analysts at Barclays lowered their target prices for a broad swathe of European Oil &Gas explorers and producers as they marked down their short and medium-term assumptions for the Brent price deck.

The broker lowered its assumptions for the price of Brent in 2017 and 2018 from $57 and $70 a barrel to $56 and $67 a barrel, respectively.

From 2019 onwards, Brent was now seen at $60 a barrel, down from $70 before.

"Although we continue to believe in a continued recovery in oil through 2017-18E, we now feel $60 is a more appropriate long-term assumption, better reflecting the planning assumption of management teams (and investors) assessing future investment opportunities," analyst James Hosie said in a research note sent to clients.

The average result of those revisions was a 21% reduction in his estimates for the group's tangible net asset value.

Furthermore, the new price targets which flowed on from those revisions meant the average upside potential for stocks in the group was reduced from 21.0% to 9.0%.

Lundin Petroleum continued to be his 'top-pick', with Hosie touting the outfit's "high-quality" Norwegian production and development portfolio and strong financial position.

Its other 'Overweight' recommendations were Africa Oil, Amerisur Resources, Cairn Energy and Ophir Energy.

Hosie lowered his target prices for Cairn Energy (from 295p to 270p), Enquest (from 53p to 54p), Faroe Petroleum (from 115p to 110p), Ophir Energy (from 125p to 110p), Premier Oil (from 100p to 70p) and for Soco (from 155p to 140p).

The analyst did raise his target on Genel Energy, from 70p to 95p.