LONDON (ShareCast) - Numis Securities has labelled its top picks in the oil sector in the aftermath of the recent Oil Market Report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The broker’s top picks include SOCO International, Genel Energy, Premier Oil, Faroe Petroleum and Borders and Southern.

These are “stocks that we expect to continue to perform in a flat oil price environment despite rising costs”, said analysts Sanjeev Bahl and Kathryn Leonard.

They said that crude oil stayed with a narrow $5-per-barrel range in March, with Brent down from $112 to $107 and West Texas Intermediate lower from $105 to $102 over the month.

“Oil prices remained fairly stable as supply outages in the Middle East North Africa region and Russia-Ukraine tensions countered seasonally weaker demand and mixed macroeconomic data from the US and China.”

The IEA said that global crude oil supplies declined by 1.2m in March to 91.75m barrels a day, due to lower output from OPEC nations such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Libya.

“We expect OPEC supply to continue to remain volatile with uncertainty over Libyan, Iraqi and Iranian exports.”

Nevertheless, Bahl and Leonard said that the monthly IEA report still “presents a robust picture for oil”.

BC

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