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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery added four cents to $91.56 on the New York Merc, while Brent for November lost 12 cents to $96.85 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $15.15 to WTI ($76.41), up from a discount of $15.25. Natural gas for October lost 3.4 cents to $3.81. The TSX energy index added 1.28 points to close at 294.79.

Paul Colborne's Surge Energy Inc. (SGY) added six cents to $7.27 on 4.17 million shares. This is roughly where it was three months ago. Four weeks ago, it reached a high of $8.71, rising during the normally slow midsummer period thanks in large part to bullishness from president and chief executive officer Colborne. In the period from May 30 to Aug. 29, he acquired over 663,000 shares, and was also on BNN and at an industry conference in Denver. This month, however, he stopped buying and went quiet, fuelling rumours that Surge is working on an acquisition. Two prior periods of quiet roughly coincided with the purchase of Flagstone Energy last year and Longview Oil this year. Surge does not seem to have imposed a trading blackout, because the chief operating officer and the chief financial officer have been buying, but rumours are swirling anyway. Last week, Global Hunter Securities analyst Sameer Uplenchwar predicted that Surge or Whitecap Resources Inc. (WCP: $15.99) might try to buy assets from Apache. That company is working with Scotia Waterous to sell land in the Provost area of southeast Alberta. According to Scotia's marketing materials, the assets are producing 9,551 barrels of oil equivalent a day from the Viking and Mannville formations. Surge has assets in the Provost area and makes sense as a potential buyer; Whitecap is less likely because it does not consider any part of Southern Alberta a core area. Bids for the Apache assets are due in mid-October.

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