Encana Corp, Canada’s No 2 oil and gas producer, posted a quarterly profit that handily beat analysts’ estimates and raised its full-year core asset production growth forecast.

An Opec-led production cut and a rebound in demand have helped increase oil prices, which are presently hovering around $50 per barrel.

Encana has also benefited from downsizin g its operations to focus on four core North American assets: the Montney and Duvernay in western Canada, and the Eagle Ford and Permian in the US.

Both US and Canadian shares of Encana were up about 3 per cent in early trading.

The company raised its 2017 core asset production growth forecast to between 25 per cent and 30 per cent from the more than 20 per cent growth it had forecast in May. Encana said it was on track to meet its capital expenditure forecast of between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion and production of 320,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) to 330,000 (boe/d).

"The fact that it chose to bump up production guidance rather than reduce capex guidance ... is an interesting data point," Cormark Securities analyst Amir Arif said.