WTI $94.57 +$1.03, Brent $97.20 +20c, Diff $2.63 -83c, NG $4.15 +12c

Oil price

A very quick and short blog this morning due to meetings in town today, as there are many results and statements out. I will catch up with all of them later in the day and speak to companies as appropriate and do a monster blog tomorrow.

On the oil price front WTI continues to creep up on a very listless Brent market, technicals should keep Brent at a premium but don’t bet on it the way things are going. Factory data from China steadied and with export orders climbing there is a little confidence returning in China.

Caza 

I am hoping to chat to Mike Ford at Caza later and will report back but an initial view of the EnCana deal in which it has bought Athlon Energy for $7.1bn in total may well have some read through for Caza due to its Permian basin position. One interesting thing to note is that Apollo, backers of Caza, also backed Athlon and at a take out price of $58.50 a share tripled their investment from the IPO in 2013. Much more later but pretty much whatever this looks good for Caza which I believe to be outstandingly cheap.

Amec

Amec, with Jacobs and Balfour Beattie have won the contract at Sellafield for the Box Encapsulation Plant which is worth between £240-336m shared between the partners.

Range Resources

Many readers will be expecting me to make an immediate comment on Range as I have been a supporter of the new management since March when I first met them. This will be impossible straight away as the announcement is full of the unexpected and I hope to talk to the company later. With the immediate target in Trinidad missed and now looking at 1H 2015 and significant write-offs it looks like a kitchen sink job to me, its just we need to know if there is sufficient value in the company to run from here. Its not a cop-out but I will have to get all the facts and figures straight before I commit to a recommendation going forward.

Sundry 

More on Afren lately after yesterdays news that SA Petro had taken a 3% stake in the company, IGas have taken a further step towards the Dart deal as the Scheme of arrangement is approved in Queensland and Pantheon has raised £18.5m to double its stake in the Kara Farms Project, again more here if I get to speak to the company.

Many results, I will distill what I can from Providence, San Leon, Amerisur (meeting upcoming), Trinity (ditto I hope…), IOG (seeing Thursday) and one or two others.

And finally…

Likewise very brief, Mr Pardew looks like he may well be on borrowed time as Newcastle sit at the bottom of the table after last nights loss at Stoke.

Tonight its the Champions League with the Noisy Neighbours playing Parma and Chelski off to Lisbon to play Sporting.