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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery added 45 cents to $59.39 on the New York Merc, while Brent for June lost 15 cents to $65.39 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $8.40 to WTI ($50.99), unchanged. Natural gas for June added 14.6 cents to $2.88. The TSX energy index added 3.22 points to close at 226.70.

Scott Price's Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (GTE) added seven cents to $4.53 on 1.92 million shares, after bowing to demands from a dissident. This helped it regain a bit of the 20 cents it lost yesterday after releasing weak first quarter financials. The most striking thing about the first quarter was how quickly the cash flew out. Gran Tierra had $331.8-million of cash and equivalents as of Dec. 31, 2014, but this figure fell to $203.5-million (U.S.) as of March 31, 2015, the lowest level since Sept. 30, 2012. The drop was mainly because of about $128-million (U.S.) of capital spending during the quarter. Of that, $74-million (U.S.) had to do with committed costs on non-core projects associated with decisions by prior management. (Former CEO Dana Coffield was shown the door three months ago, seemingly as a result of an expensive misstep in Peru. Gran Tierra has since indicated that it will try to spend most of its money in its core area of Colombia.) These commitments are not over yet. Of Gran Tierra's $140-million budget for the year, it has a little under half -- $66-million (U.S.) -- left to spend over next three quarters, of which $27-million (U.S.) must go to non-core Peru and Brazil. The end result will be that Gran Tierra will spend a lot of money this year and will not have a lot to show for it in terms of core Colombian production. (In fact, the company has lowered its Colombian production guidance to a range of 17,300 to 17,800 barrels of oil equivalent a day, net after royalties, from the previous forecast of 17,750 barrels a day.) Although the cash balance and guidance reduction dominated the day, there were also encouraging signs in the first quarter results. General and administrative and operating costs are going down, and interestingly, Gran Tierra noted that 80 per cent of its Colombian production was sold via the OTA pipeline, about double the percentage for the same period last year. Less reliance on trucking should further reduce costs.

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