On April 18, 2023, XI Technologies looked at expiring land to provide useful business development intel for service companies and exploration and production (E&P) companies. While not surprised to see that Canadian Natural Resources Limited had the most expiring hectares given their size and activity, we were surprised to see that Grande Prairie, with its prolific and coveted Montney play had the second largest expiring land tranche in the next 12 months.
Figure 1 – Expiring Land by Region
Figure 2 – Wells drilled past 12 months
We also noted that Grande Prairie was only 12% of the drilling activity for the previous 12 months, suggesting this previously prolific area is experiencing a bit of a slowdown. Let’s take a deeper look at the region of Grande Prairie and its oil and gas ownership.
Figure 3 – Grande Prairie Region definition
There is currently 1,184,429 boe/day coming from the region defined as Grande Prairie (see map above). The Montney zone currently makes up almost 50% of the production from this area:
Figure 4 – Grande Prairie zone breakout
Much of the production has been commingled in recent years; particularly production coming from the Fort St John formations such as the Spirit River, Falher, Bluesky and into the Bullhead group with the Gething and Cadomin. In fact, almost 20% of the current production is now coming from what the government has termed “Commingled Pools”.
The Montney production is relatively new, getting its legs in 2013 – 2015. The biggest owner of this play is ARC Resources as the graph below illustrates:
Figure 5 – Grande Prairie Montney production by company (top 10)
These Montney wells and facilities have a total undiscounted liability of approximately $1.369 Billion, with 16% of the well licenses and 24% of the facilities designated as inactive. Over 50% of the active wells are 5 years or younger, and 813 spills have been reported on all assets.
When looking at Grande Prairie in total, the area has an overall liability of $5.483 Billion with 51% of wells and 24% of facilities designated as inactive. Overall, ownership remains consistent with that of the Montney, as the majority of production is from that play. To see a summary of Grande Prairie ownership, please download our Grande Prairie Report.
Please let us know if there is another zone or play in which you may be interested in learning about drilling, production or liabilities – take our quick poll here to provide us with feedback on which area the next insight should highlight!
If you’d like to learn more about how XI’s AssetSuite software can analyze companies, packages, or regions throughout Western Canada, visit our website or contact XI Technologies.