BP price target raised to $40 from $38 at Piper Sandler

Piper Sandler raised the firm’s price target on BP to $40 from $38 and keeps a Neutral rating on the shares. Supportive commodity prices and impressively low-cost structures are generating robust free cash flow, relative market multiples are enabling accretive consolidation, downstream markets remain tight, and volume/CFO growth is strong, supported by deep, quality resource bases, the firm says. However, depth and quality of upstream resource diverges materially across the group, which will have a material impact on relative capital efficiency and the long-term sustainability of CFO/free cash flow growth, in Piper’s view. In this regard, the firm sees U.S. IOC portfolios as supporting higher growth at lower risk.