The Globe and Mail reports in its Tuesday edition that Scotia Capital analyst Ben Isaacson has upgraded his recommendation for Methanex to "sector outperform" from "sector perform." The Globe's David Leeder writes that Mr. Isaacson gave his share target a $7 boost to $54 (all figures U.S.). Analysts on average target the shares at $51.64. Mr. Isaacson says the risk-reward proposition for Methanex has "now tilted meaningfully to the long-side." He says Methanex is "an effective way to manage portfolio risk related to rising tension in the Middle East." The analyst admits he is "disappointed" with the company's new two-year natural gas agreement with the National Gas Company (NGC) of Trinidad and Tobago, which will see it shut down its Atlas plant next year and restart its smaller Titan plant. Mr. Isaacson says in a note: "Over the past year or so, the market has been bullish (including Scotia) that Methanex was negotiating a gas contract to restart Titan, as part of its negotiation process to extend the Atlas gas contract beyond its August '24 expiration. ... Perhaps we were naive on our straightforward assumptions [that] Atlas would transition onto a new long-term contract at effectively unchanged economics."