UPDATE: BMO Capital Markets Reiterates Outperform Rating, Raises PT on Noble Energy

In a report published Monday, BMO Capital Markets reiterated its Outperform rating on Noble Energy

, and raised its price target from $115.00 to $120.00. BMO Capital Markets noted, “In general terms we describe NBL as a "return" story, one where field-level economics can ultimately make their way to the corporate level. Its one of few examples in the industry where this happens, believe it or not. In less general terms, we describe NBL as a "Niobrara" story, one about putting capital to work more aggressively in the DJ Basin in an effort to drive higher margin growth and accelerate value capture. This was our chief takeaway from the company's recent analyst conference. This is what drives our NAV and forms the foundation for our Outperform rating. Noble's plan for 2013 is to commit more than 40% (~$1.7B) of its ~$3.9B capital expenditure budget to drill 300 horizontal wells targeting the Niobrara. Here, we take a closer look at what the company has produced to date across its 640k net acre leasehold in the DJ Basin on the Colorado side of the play. We plot this data against our applied type curves to better understand potential field-level economics and the impact to our NAV analysis. We show all-in, after-tax returns of up to 30%. This high end of the range reflects the company's success with extending lateral lengths. Production history shows a potential doubling of reserves per location with longer horizontal wells. We like it.” Noble Energy closed on Friday at $101.45.