Tuesday newspaper share tips: Premier Oil, Tullow Oil, Hurricane Energy

19th Apr 2016 14:01

(ShareCast News) - When capital and labour clash, the former is likely to come out on top, something which some UK oil explorers should note, the Financial Times's Lex column said.OPEC ministers meeting over the weekend in Doha failed to get a grip on their levels of production by agreeing to freeze output, much less actually cutting supplies.Labour trumped the owners of capital, as striking state oil workers in Kuwait did what those ministers could not.By walking out on Sunday, OPEC's third largest producer saw its daily 3m barrel output halved, which is a lot, Lex said.Equities should not react much to the goings-on in the oil industry, as the correlation between stocks and oil is less than perfect. However, credit default rates among energy companies are tightly linked to the price of crude. So too are some US banks' shares, such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo, having lent directly to those companies.That is important because in the end capital will have its day. The price of oil is too low - even after a recent rebound - and European explorers depend even more on bank loans than on markets for capital.UK groups such as Premier Oil and Tullow Oil will have to work ever harder to keep their lenders happy as the year goes on, Lex concluded. Kerogen Capital is taking the long-view on shares of oil explorer Hurricane Energy and The Times's Tempus believes investors should do the same.The private equity outfit - which specialises in oil and gas - already picked up Zennor Petroleum last year and will provide the lion's share of the £52m in funds Hurricane is raising.Since its IPO towards the start of 2014 Hurricane Energy's share price has crumbled, predictably so.Hurricane floated at 43p a share and Kerogen and two other investors are set to pay 15p a share, with the former obtaining a 29.9% stake in return.That funding will provide for the drilling of the Lancaster oilfield west of the Shetlands, which is expected to come on stream in 2019. By proceeding now Hurricane may also be able to take advantage of current cheap rates for contractors."I have followed Hurricane for a while now and see the shares, up 2½p at 12¾p, as a good if highly speculative play on any rise in the oil price, buy for the long-term," Tempus said.