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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York Merc crude for June delivery added 86 cents to $96.02 (all figures in this para U.S.). Brent for June added 86 cents to $104.64. West Texas Intermediate added 38 cents to $95.56, while Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $20.46 to WTI ($75.10), down from a discount of $19.30. The TSX energy index added 4.74 points to close at 251.65.

Southern Pacific Resource Corp. (STP), the heaviest trader on the TSX, added 9.5 cents to 50 cents on 15.3 million shares, its busiest day in over two years. Much of this volume came from Merrill Lynch Canada, which crossed one block of 5.96 million shares this morning and another of 1.37 million shares this afternoon, all at 50 cents. Southern Pacific has fallen from nearly $2 this time last year, largely because of challenges getting its STP-McKay thermal oil sands project in Alberta off the ground. Disappointing progress at the company's other core project, in Saskatchewan, also depressed the stock. STP-McKay began production in October and currently produces about 1,250 barrels of bitumen a day. Southern Pacific hopes to boost capacity to 12,000 barrels a day by May of next year, then 36,000 barrels a day in mid-2017. The company raised some eyebrows last summer when it put in place a unique plan to ship all its bitumen from STP-McKay (and eventually from Saskatchewan) using CN's railway network instead of pipelines. This offers access to Brent-based instead of WCS-based pricing. Southern Pacific sends its product 60 kilometres by truck to a terminal south of Fort McMurray, where it is loaded onto rail cars that carry about 650 barrels each. From there, the bitumen is carried about 4,500 kilometres to a terminal in Natchez, Miss., where it is transferred onto barges that haul it down the Mississippi to customers on the U.S. Gulf Coast. The first rail shipment from STP-McKay left on Dec. 22 and arrived at Natchez in early January.

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