CALGARY, ALBERTA–(Marketwired – Sept. 16, 2016) – BlackPearl Resources Inc. (“BlackPearl” or the “Company”) (TSX:PXX)(OMX:PXXS) is pleased to announce that its 80,000 barrel per day commercial development application at Blackrod, located in the Athabasca Oil Sands, has received regulatory and environmental approval from the Alberta Energy Regulator and the Alberta government.
John Festival, President and CEO of BlackPearl commented that “in addition to extensive delineation drilling and seismic coverage over the application area we have run a successful SAGD pilot at Blackrod during the last four years that validated the SAGD process on our lease. In conjunction with this work we filed a commercial development application and after a long and thorough review of our proposed development we are very pleased with the decision of the regulators and the provincial government. With a successful pilot, which has averaged in excess of 550 barrels of oil per day over the last 16 months with a steam oil ratio of 2.8, and commercial development approval our next steps are to secure funding for the project. We believe the long life, low decline nature of these assets provide a very attractive opportunity. This approval also represents a major step towards our long term strategy to transition to a significant thermal oil producer.”
At December 31, 2015 our independent reserves evaluator assigned 180 million barrels of proved plus probable bitumen reserves to our Blackrod leases and an additional 453 million barrels of contingent resource (risked, best estimate). At 80,000 barrels per day, these reserves and resources represent a production life in excess of 20 years.