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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery added $1.61 to $75.82 on the New York Merc, while Brent for January lost $1.49 to $79.41 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $15.60 to WTI ($60.22), down from a discount of $15.50. Natural gas for December added 4.3 cents to $4.02. The TSX energy index added 2.99 points to close at 259.00.

Rick McHardy's Spartan Energy Corp. (SPE) lost three cents to $3.00 on 2.61 million shares, after losing 15 cents yesterday, despite releasing decent third quarter results and raising its year-end production guidance. Third quarter production and cash flow were in line with analysts' predictions. Spartan recently achieved production of 8,600 barrels a day, its target for year-end 2014, so it has increased that target to a range of 8,900 to 9,100 barrels a day, citing better-than-expected drill results. Expectations are easy to beat when they are deliberately low. For example, in Spartan's core Queensdale Frobisher area, the type curve has stayed at 60 barrels a day even though only a fraction of the wells drilled there, either by Spartan or the previous asset owner, Renegade Petroleum (bought by Spartan in March), have been anywhere near that figure. The actual IP30 average for Spartan's wells at Queensdale is 150 barrels a day. Spartan's other core play in southeast Saskatchewan is the frack-able Midale. There, it had mixed updates: It has successfully drilled two fracked wells at Pinto, is working on a third and is "encouraged" by its initial results, which suggests that they are at least tracking its IP30 type curve of 120 barrels a day. (For reference, the dominant Pinto player is Legacy Oil + Gas Ltd. (LEG: $4.25), which has an IP30 type curve of 165 barrels a day but in fact had a real IP30 average of 250 barrels a day in the third quarter.) Spartan did have one bit of bad news in the Midale; its first fracked well at Elcott suffered a casing collapse. It will either have to fix that or drill a new well.

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