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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for June delivery gained 22 cents to $71.36 on the New York Merc, while Brent for June gained 26 cents to $77.47 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $16.05 to WTI ($55.31), unchanged. Natural gas for June gained eight cents to $2.81. The TSX energy index gained a fraction to 201.84.

Oil sands producer MEG Energy Corp. (MEG) gained 28 cents to $8.15 on 7.41 million shares after releasing its first quarter results. It produced 93,200 barrels of bitumen a day, compared with analysts' average prediction of 92,000 barrels a day. As well, it had cash flow per share of 28 cents, pleasantly surprising analysts, whose average prediction was 22 cents.

In March, MEG closed the $1.6-billion sale of its 50-per-cent interest in the Access pipeline and its 100-per-cent interest in the Stonefell terminal (both are in the oil sands, connected to the company's Christina Lake project). Today, the company confirmed that it used $1.2-billion of the proceeds to pay off a loan, thereby reducing its total debt to $3.5-billion from $4.6-billion. MEG is using the rest of the proceeds to increase production at Christina Lake to 100,000 barrels a day later this year or early next year. Its ambition is to further boost that figure to 113,000 barrels a day in 2020.

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