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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for October delivery lost 66 cents to $92.41 on the New York Merc, while Brent for November added 69 cents to $98.39 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $15.25 to WTI ($77.16), unchanged. Natural gas for October lost 7.3 cents to $3.83. The TSX energy index lost 5.70 points to close at 299.46.

Scotland has rejected independence in a historic referendum, with 55 per cent of voters deciding they would rather stay in the United Kingdom. Markets around the world were relieved. Among oil companies, majors Shell and BP had been urging a vote against independence so as to avoid disturbing industry. The majority of the North Sea's reserves are in what would have become Scottish waters.

Two Toronto-listed producers in the North Sea are Ithaca Energy Inc. (IAE), up five cents to $2.39 on 838,500 shares, and Iona Energy Inc. (INA), down 1.5 cents to 37.5 cents on 267,000 shares. Ithaca produced 14,300 barrels of oil equivalent a day in the second quarter. Except for three minor assets farther south, all of the company's producing assets and its next big development project, 55-per-cent-held Stella, are in Scottish waters. Stella is expected to produce 16,000 barrels a day for Ithaca once it starts production in mid-2015. This is a year behind the original schedule, mainly because of infrastructure issues, but Ithaca tries to smooth over the delay by pointing out the wells' high test rates. The first tested at 10,800 barrels a day, the second at 10,400 barrels a day, the third over 12,500 and the fourth, as announced on Tuesday, at 12,000 barrels a day. Each was originally expected to produce around 7,000 to 8,000 barrels a day. As good as the test rates are, Ithaca still needs to bring the wells on production, and its press release on Tuesday did not mention its target of doing so in mid-2015. This could be telling in light of its second quarter conference call for analysts last month. This call was not open to investors, but, as mentioned in the Aug. 13 Energy Summary, Canaccord Genuity analysts Charlie Sharp and Thomas Martin put out a research report after the call saying that Ithaca had warned of further "timetable slippage." The analysts pushed their expected start date to the fall of 2015.

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