NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Plains Exploration & Production (PXP) rose rapidly on Wednesday morning as the company spoke at a UBS global energy conference.
The presentation that Plains provided at the conference is also available on its Web site, and there were no significant changes from its last presentation to investors that would merit a spike in shares, according to an energy analyst who had reviewed the information. Nevertheless, Plains shares rose before the company provided its live commentary at the UBS conference.
Plains has been planning a spinoff of its Gulf of Mexico deepwater assets, and the progress of those plans could be a trigger to send Plains shares higher. [IMO this is exactly why the share price moved higher. When they announce the actual sale the shares should move a lot higher. My Fair Value estimate for PXP is $57/share. - Dan ]
Plains Exploration said earlier this month that it would seek to spin off its GoM deepwater assets by this summer.
Speaking at the same UBS conference on Tuesday, oil service company Halliburton (HAL) said that the situation in the Gulf of Mexico is improving a little sooner than anticipated, more than a year after the BP oil spill which effectively shut down the Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling business.