Throughout the summer and into fall, we have seen some interesting stories and news come across our desk. Below were some of the most popular reads, what the story was about, and what is the current state of the players at hand.
The top-performing post was a column titled Canada & the U.S at risk of an energy crisis -OPEC & energy security: in which our columnist Maureen McCall sat down for a sobering conversation with Dan McTeague, President of Canadians for Affordable Energy, energy analyst and previous Member of Parliament, and the role that OPEC plays in the energy market.
Another strong performer was a column from Terry Etam titled Looming European energy crisis: A lesson in averages that won’t soon be forgotten. Terry speaks about the use of averages, and the importance of hydrocarbons and the integral role they play in our lives. He says “When the risk of harm goes up, we design for the extremes, not the averages. Or we should.
A whole world of trouble will come your way if your plans are built on averages but you cannot live with the extremes. Or even with substantial variations. Europe, and other progressive energy parts of the world, are finding this out the hard way.”
A recent contentious story on CNRL requiring all their workers to be fully vaccinated by Dec. 1 was well-read. They were the first company to make such an announcement as the province and country continue to battel COVID-19. Read it here.
The Spartan Delta Corp acquisition of Velvet Energy, a privately-held light-oil producer in the Montney with operations in the Gold Creek, Karr, and Pouce Coupe areas of Northwest Alberta in July for total consideration of approximately $743.3 million was a large summer acquisition. The acquisition positions Spartan as the largest producer and acreage holder in the oil window of the Montney, as average production from the Velvet assets is expected to be approximately 20,600 boe/d(2), including approximately 281,700 net acres of high working interest. With the industry seeing many large mergers and acquisitions, it will be interesting to see what happens in the remainder of 2021 and into 2022.
A popular and well-received addition to the website was the Well of the Week series, in which Neil Watson, P. Geol., and Director, Geology with Enlighten Geoscience Ltd., describes how resource plays (basin-wide plays in which hydrocarbons are the continuous phase) have often driven development throughout the history of the Canadian Oil and Gas industry. This series has been a well-researched and well-written addition to the site, and we are excited to learn more about the industry’s history.
Stay tuned in December as we highlight 2021’s top stories from BOE Report.