KUALA LUMPUR (June 16): Shares in SapuraKencana Petroleum Bhd remained under selling pressure and fell to its historical low of RM1.45 as at midday break today in active trades.

The selling pressure could be sparked by the Employees Provident Fund (EPF), who trimmed its stake in the company since early this month.

Another reason could be due to investment analysts slashing the oil and gas giant's earnings forecasts by more than half for financial year ending Jan 31, 2017 (FY17) and FY18, after meeting with the group's management last week.

At 12.30pm midday break, the stock fell seven sen or 4.61% to RM1.45, after 14.22 million shares were traded between RM1.45 and RM1.51. It closed at RM1.52 yesterday with 15.2 million shares changing hands.

The current price values it at RM8.69 billion.

Year to date, it has lost 57 sen or 28.2%, which is worse than the FBM KLCI's 5.9% decline.

According to SapuraKencana's filings on Bursa Malaysia, the pension fund had sold a total of 18.23 million shares or 0.3% stake in the group since beginning of the month.

Nevertheless, the filing showed EPF had bought 1.2 million and one million shares on June 8 and 9 respectively.

After the transactions, EPF holds 900.04 million or a 15.02% stake in SapuraKencana.

On Monday (June 13), investment analysts have turned even more cautious on SapuraKencana's prospects after last Friday's (June 10) briefing.

There are concerns that the group would not be able replenish its order book as fast in the current downturn, in addition to the declining daily charter rates for its oil rigs that are eating into its earnings.

At the point of writing, internationally traded Brent Crude was down 0.82% at US$48.57 (RM198.52) per barrel, while US crude fell 0.94% to US$47.56 per barrel.