One of the biggest movers on the market this morning has been the Senex Energy Ltd (ASX: SXY) share price.
At the time of writing the oil and gas exploration and production company's shares are up a massive 23% to 33.2 cents.
Why have its shares gone gangbusters?
This morning Senex announced that it has been awarded the 58 square kilometre Surat Basin acreage for domestic gas supply by the Queensland government.
According to the release, the high quality acreage contains P50 recoverable gas volumes of 201 petajoules and is capable of sustaining production rates of more than 30 terajoules per day.
The company expects to obtain regulatory approvals over the acreage in mid-2018, with its first domestic supply predicted to reach customers in 2019.
Unsurprisingly, this major development has led to a number of brokers upgrading Senex's shares to a buy rating.
Both Citi and Macquarie have upgraded Senex to buy (high risk) and outperform ratings, respectively, with price targets of 35 cents from each of them.
Elsewhere, according to a note out of Credit Suisse, its analysts have retained their outperform rating but increased the price target on its shares to 40 cents.
Should you invest?
There's no doubt that this is a game-changer for Senex and I can't say I'm surprised to see such a positive reaction.
However, if you don't already own its shares then I suspect that the majority of the gains have now been missed.
As a result, I would suggest investors looking for exposure to the oil and gas sector consider large cap rival Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) instead.
