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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery lost six cents to $53.14 on the New York Merc, while Brent for May lost nine cents to $55.92 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $14.30 to WTI ($38.84), unchanged. Natural gas for April lost eight cents to $2.82. The TSX energy index lost 1.02 points to close at 202.42.

Baytex Energy Corp. (BTE) lost one cent to $5.02 on 6.85 million shares, after releasing so-so financials for year-end 2016. Fourth quarter production and cash flow were reasonably in line with analysts' expectations. Full-year net loss improved significantly to $485-million in 2016 from $1.14-billion in 2015, but the improvement did little to impress investors, seeing as both years were affected by large impairment charges ($423-million in 2016 and $1.03-billion in 2015). The impairments were largely related to low oil and gas prices. These also prompted Baytex to scale back its activity, particularly in Canada, where production dropped to less than 33,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2016 from nearly 45,000 barrels a day in 2015. The rest of Baytex's production comes from the Texas Eagle Ford. This play has been receiving the bulk of Baytex's attention for the last couple of years. As a result, the Eagle Ford production declined only slightly in 2016, dropping to about 36,500 barrels a day from the 2015 level of close to 40,000 barrels a day.

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