Shares of Premier Oil Plc, a U.K. company exploring for crude in the North Sea, Asia and Africa, surged to a record after the company said it got a takeover offer from an unidentified suitor.

Discussions are at an ``extremely early stage'' and a formal offer may not be made, Premier said today in a Regulatory News Service statement. The shares advanced 95 pence, or 7.9 percent, their biggest one-day gain since March 2003, to close at a record-high 1,300 pence today in London. That values the company at 1.06 billion pounds ($1.99 billion).

Oil prices in New York have climbed 81 percent since 2003, boosting the appeal of oil companies. Oil today traded at $58.84 a barrel, down about 25 percent since a July record. London- based Premier, founded in 1934 as the Caribbean Oil Co., produced 33,521 barrels of oil equivalent in the first half, 3.6 percent less than in a year earlier, it said in September.

``Premier has a good, steady base of production with immediate access to high-impact exploration offshore west Africa,'' Tony Alves, an analyst at KBC Peel Hunt Ltd. who rates the stock ``hold,'' said in an interview. He would be ``surprised'' if the bidder is a western company and ``would look east for possible names.''

A purchase at the current share price would be ``too high,'' he added.

The company has operations in Vietnam, Egypt, Indonesia, India, U.K., Norway, Mauritania, Guinea Bissau, Pakistan and the Philippines.