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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

West Texas Intermediate crude for January delivery added $1.00 to $75.58 on the New York Merc, while Brent for January added $1.23 to $79.33 (all figures in this para U.S.). Western Canadian Select traded at a discount of $16.85 to WTI ($58.74), up from a discount of $17. Natural gas for December added 11.8 cents to $4.48. The TSX energy index added 7.02 points to close at 261.93.

John Wright's Lightstream Resources Inc. (LTS) added 59 cents to $3.38 on 5.83 million shares. It had no news, but it has been getting some pleasing outside mentions in the last couple of days. Both BNN and the Motley Fool Canada website drew attention to recent insider buying. From Nov. 4 to 14, six insiders bought nearly 527,000 shares, including president and chief executive officer Wright (200,000 shares) and chief financial officer Peter Scott (20,000 shares). The average price was $2.60. Lightstream hit an all-time low of $2.28 earlier this month, shortly after putting out disappointing third quarter financials, a mixed operational update, and a reduction to full-year and year-end production guidance. The company has rebounded since then, although it still has a long way to go to reach its June level above $9. It has been focusing on drilling. This month, it has spudded or licensed eight wells, all in the Alberta Cardium and Saskatchewan Bakken/Mississippian plays. These are the company's main producing assets. It has been touting another set of assets, in the Alberta Swan Hills play, as its "next growth wedge" for over a year, but investors will be waiting a while to see any growth. In August, Lightstream noted that poorly performing Swan Hills wells had prompted a technical review, but that drilling might resume in the fourth quarter. In its recent update, however, it said that even though the review's results were generally good, drilling will not resume until the second half of 2015. It blamed infrastructure constraints. Investors seemed somewhat disappointed, although their main problems with the company are its heavy debt (which was $1.56-billion as of Sept. 30) and its expensive dividend (which yields 14.2 per cent). CFO Scott may face some tough questions at the BofA Merrill Lynch Leveraged Finance Conference on Dec. 2. At least he will be out of the cold; the conference is in sunny Boca Raton, Fla.

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