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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery lost six cents to $81.78 on the New York Merc, while Brent for December lost 92 cents to $84.12 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $12.55 to WTI ($69.23), unchanged. Natural gas for November lost 1.6 cents to $3.80. The TSX energy index lost 1.42 points to close at 249.41.

Bellatrix Exploration Ltd. (BXE) lost 32 cents to $5.24 on 7.23 million shares, after lowering its production guidance for the fourth time this year. It originally set a full-year target of 44,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day. This was reduced in March and May until it was 41,000. Another cut, this time to a quarterly target instead of the full-year one, came last month, when Bellatrix lowered its third quarter estimate to 40,500 barrels a day. This meant it would almost certainly have to lower its full-year target. Investors were likely not surprised that Bellatrix finally did so today -- the new target is 38,500 -- but the announcement also showed that the company failed to meet its reduced third quarter target, producing just 38,000 barrels a day. It also lowered its year-end target to a range of 44,000 to 46,000 barrels a day from 48,000. Third party plant constraints were, as usual, Bellatrix's reason for the reduction. The company is building its own plant to help solve this problem. It told analysts during a site tour last month that it had boosted capacity and pushed the phase 1 start-up date to May, 2015, from July, 2015, so investors may also have been disappointed that today's update did not mention that. In New York, however, president and chief executive officer Ray Smith talked up the plant this morning at the Canaccord Genuity Global Resource Conference. He was on a panel called "Anchoring growth with strategic infrastructure," along with officials from Crew Energy Inc. (CR: $7.24), Painted Pony Petroleum Ltd. (PPY: $10.19), and Paramount Resources Ltd. (POU: $48.63). They talked about the advantages and disadvantages of building their own gas plants (like Bellatrix, Crew and Paramount) or allowing a mid-stream company to handle that (as in Painted Pony's recent deal with AltaGas). Most of what they said has already been disclosed publicly, but Mr. Smith did say that the Bellatrix plant will be ready in the second quarter of 2015 -- so, earlier than July. He added that Bellatrix may have lowered its year-end target as noted above, but he still thinks that "we have a good shot" at the previous target of 48,000 barrels a day. Despite his and the other presenters' optimism, all four ended the day down.

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