Dallas, Texas 11/05/2013 (Financialstrend) – The $1.44 billion market capped oil and gas drilling / exploration company Bill Barrett Corp. (NYSE:BBG) in the past 10 days has attracted rating upgrades and reiterations from three different rating agencies like Ladenburg Thalmann, Wunderlich and Deutsche Bank. The latest upgrade was by Ladenburg which reiterated its earlier Buy rating for the stock and increased its price target. Post these reiterations, the price target set by agencies and trade houses for the stock vary between a low of $28 and a high of $40 per share. As of close of business on November 4, the stock was trading at $30.3 per share up 18% in the past 30 days.
The market bull rally of the stock was post the oil manufacturer’s third quarter operations result announcement after close of business on October 31. Its loss per share was $0.09 while revenue came in at $148 million. The revenue reported was $0.83 million more than the market expectations. Production of oil had gone up by 25% per day to level out at 9,880 barrels per day average per day. The “realized price of oil was $6.81 per Mcfe” with oil sales accounting for close to 56% of the company’s revenues.
Commenting on the solid 3Q performance, President and company chief executive officer and Scot Woodall has been quoted as saying, “Our commitment to complete an asset sale and maintain our debt level at or below year-end 2012 is being accomplished. Year-to-date in the Wattenberg, we have drilled 43 wells in our 65-well program and have completed 26. Further, we have completed the 2013 drilling plan in the Uinta Oil Program with 57 wells drilled and 56 completed, including 20 wells in the East Bluebell acreage position thus positioning our company for solid oil reserve growth at year-end and cash flow growth in 2014.”