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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery added $1.40 to $44.04 on the New York Merc, while Brent for June added $1.26 to $45.74 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $13.85 to WTI ($30.19), unchanged. Natural gas for May lost 3.1 cents to $2.032. The TSX energy index added 1.22 points to close at 185.60.

Li Ka-Shing's Husky Energy Inc. (HSE) lost $1.61 to $15.93 on 7.12 million shares, failing to please investors with its first quarter financials and a massive asset sale. The company announced last night that it will sell a 65-per-cent interest in various mid-stream assets in the Lloydminster area of Alberta and Saskatchewan for $1.7-billion. It will retain a 35-per-cent interest and remain operator. The deal looks to be a very friendly one. The buyers are Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. and Power Assets Holdings Ltd., which are identified by Husky as a global infrastructure company and a global investor in energy businesses, respectively. Husky does not mention that both companies are part of the corporate empire of the above-named Li Ka-Shing, who is Hong Kong's richest man and controls Husky. His companies own over 698 million of its one billion shares, and his son and likely successor, Victor Li, is Husky's co-chairman. The younger Li is also the chairman and executive director of Cheung Kong and an executive director of Power Assets. Incidentally, Cheung Kong and Power Assets were once set to merge. Father and son proposed the merger last year, seeking to combine the empire's infrastructure arm with its power affiliate -- or rather, the affiliate's $8.75-billion (U.S.) cash pot -- but shareholders voted the deal down in November, during a meeting that a Wall Street Journal article described as "stormy." The article further noted that this marked the second failure to access Power Assets' cash; shareholders had previously killed a proposal to buy bonds of Cheung Kong.

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