U.K. independent oil and gas company Tullow Oil PLC (TLW.LN) said Monday that new drilling results and other tests confirm the Owo prospect in Ghana is a "major new oil field."

Owo is the second major oil discovery Tullow has made off Ghana 's shores. The first, Jubilee, which will produce its first oil later this year, propelled Tullow into London 's blue-chip stock index. Owo is near the existing Tweneboa oil and gas discovery.

In July, Tullow said it had found the Owo oil field in the deepwater Tano block, potentially adding 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent to the resource estimate for the area.

On Monday, Tullow said in a statement that the Owo-1 exploration sidetrack well has significantly extended the column of high quality light oil discovered via the Owo-1 well.

"The discovery of very material volumes of light oil in Owo and the fact that the oil is concentrated in high quality channel sands greatly enhances our outlook for the efficient future development of both the Owo and Tweneboa fields," said Angus McCoss, Tullow's exploration director.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Tullow's house broker -- said in a note Monday that the sidetrack well confirms Owo's potential and materially improves the quality of the field, even though the "Owo/Tweneboa upside [P10] remains unchanged at 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent" in possible reserves.

The Owo field itself is now estimated to contain some 200 million barrels of proven and probable oil resources, with an upside case of 550 million barrels of possible reserves, said the Royal Bank of Scotland , the other Tullow house broker, in a note.

Citibank said in a note that Tullow's increased guidance across the Owo/Tweneboa/Ntomme complex prompted Citi to raise its net asset value estimate. The bank has a buy rating for Tullow, and it raised its target price 20 pence to 1470 pence a share.

Evolution Securities, which also rates Tullow a buy, increased its Tullow target price by 50 pence to 1500 pence, partly reflecting the prospect's increased likelihood of development, it said in a note.

Around 1237 GMT, Tullow shares traded up about 0.5%, or 6 pence, at 1240 pence.

Tullow operates the Deepwater Tano license and holds a 49.95% stake. Its partners include Kosmos Energy Ghana with 18%, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) with 18%, Sabre Oil & Gas with 4.05% and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) with a 10% carried interest.

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