British Columbia’s most active operator is Progress Energy

Drilling activity in British Columbia is focused almost entirely on the Montney natural gas reserves in the province’s northeast corner. Of the 256 total wells drilled in BC since June of 2015, 226 were targeted at the Montney. The most active driller in the region (for that matter, BC) is Progress Energy. Progress, since June of 2015 has drilled 69 wells all focused on the Montney play. Tourmaline Oil Corp. is the next most active driller in British Columbia. In the past year, the Tourmaline has drilled a total of 21 wells all focused, like Progress, on the Montney play.

The current iteration of Progress Energy was formed after Malaysia’s Petronas purchased the company in 2012. The transaction followed a joint venture established between the two companies in 2011 to develop a portion of Progress Energy’s Montney natural gas assets. Today, the company produces more than 750 million cubic feet equivalent of natural gas northeast British Columbia and northwest Alberta. Currently, the company’s production serves Canadian markets while ambitiously expanding production capacity on its large Montney land holdings in preparation for the possible opening of new LNG markets in Asia.

Petronas is a global leader in LNG and the owner of Vancouver-based Pacific NorthWest LNG, which is planning to build a world-scale LNG export facility on Canada’s west coast, near Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

On June 27th, it was announced that a three-month clock had started for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to decide whether to allow Petronas to build its ambitious LNG project. More than three years and 100,000 hours of studies since first proposed, the project’s final filing was posted on the website of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Canada Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr committed in June to decide whether to approve the project within 90 days of final submission.

As was reported in Bloomberg, Canada exports gas to an oversupplied U.S. market through pipelines. The $36 billion project aims to ship gas from Lelu Island — a small, uninhabited islet on the Pacific Coast — to energy-hungry Asian markets. Yet its approval has been mired over concerns about the impact on fish, wildlife and the traditional ways of life of First Nation tribes in the region.

BOE Report’s Well Activity Map provided the data for this article.