Significant exposure to two of the hottest new emerging shale plays in North America should add significant value to EnCana Corp.'s natural gas pipeline in the coming years.
That's the opinion of several analysts who Tuesday weighed in on the announcement that EnCana has 220,000 net acres in the Horn River shale play of Northeast B.C., and 325,000 net acres in the Haynesville shale play in Louisiana and Texas. Drilling results to date at both plays has been compared to the Barnett shale gas play and EnCana said it believes each play can achieve production of 1 bcf per day in the future.
"Although both plays are early-stage in nature, they have the potential to meaningfully impact EnCana's long-term production growth," Blackmont analyst Menno Hulshof said in a research note, reiterating his "buy" rating and US$99 price target.
Adds UBS analyst Andrew Potter: "We estimate that the Horn River & Haynesville could easily add $7 to $10 per share to our net asset value. He left unchanged his "buy" rating and US$120 price target.
