KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 15): KENCANA PETROLEUM BHD [] shares edged up on Thursday after its first quarter earnings rose 59.5% to RM83.54 million from RM52.35 million a year ago, underpinned by the full contribution from Allied Marine & Equipment Sdn Bhd.

At 9.25am, Kencana was up two sen to RM2.81 with 164,000 shares traded.

Its revenue increased by 69% to RM569.92 million from RM336.96 million while earnings per share were 4.2 sen compared with 3.16 sen.

MIDF Research in a note Thursday said that Kencana's 1QFY12 earnings were above expectations, the research house made no changes to its profit estimates, awaiting the completion of its merger deal with SapuraCrest.

'Nonetheless, we revised our target price to RM3 (which is at par with the offer price for the merger deal) from RM2.70 previously to reflect better-than-expected earnings.

'Our TP implied 21.1 times PER12, which is 1 times multiple above its historical average since 2007,' it said.