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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery gained $2.09 to $65.51 on the New York Merc, while Brent for June gained $2.39 to $71.04 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $16.80 to WTI ($48.71), unchanged. Natural gas for May lost four cents to $2.66. The TSX energy index gained 4.38 points to 185.45.

Many oil and gas producers levitated with the market, trading millions of shares on no news. Alberta Montney producer NuVista Energy Ltd. (NVA) gained 50 cents to $7.45, oil sands producer MEG Energy Corp. (MEG) gained 41 cents to $5.59 and Turkish gas producer Valeura Energy Inc. (VLE) climbed 62 cents to $5.22.

Little Azerbaijani oil producer Zenith Energy Ltd. (ZEE) closed unchanged at 12 cents on 65,000 shares. It has shut in 31 terribly performing wells, which had an average water cut of 99 per cent. Note that this was an average water cut, so some of those 31 wells were likely not producing any oil at all. Now, Zenith is left with 34 wells that are producing a total of 300 barrels of oil a day. For context, in February, Zenith was producing 350 barrels of oil a day. Following a cost analysis, however, the company determined that it was too expensive to keep the 31 underperforming wells on production to gain only 50 more barrels of oil a day.

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