CALGARY • Encana Corp. is no longer one of the “bad balance sheet” companies in the oil patch, and at least one analyst expects its shares to rise as it focuses on new drilling in Texas. In Encana’s case, he said, “The overhang of the debt has been fixed.”Encana closed its equity offering in late September. Encana will host its annual investor day on Wednesday in New York, at which point Citi expects the company will announce a capital budget of US$1.7 billion for 2017. “Doug Suttles has done a lot to change the asset mix of this company,” Morris said. The recent equity offering, he said in his research note, removes Encana “from the ‘bad balance sheet bucket’ and should enable it to maintain an investment grade credit rating.”Not everyone is as enthusiastic as Morris about Encana’s prospects.

Source: National Post September 30, 2016 21:33 UTC