We thought it was high time to review recent activity in one of the WCSB’s most exciting fields: Marten Hills. Since Jan 1 2022, this Clearwater field has seen some of the most licensing activity of any area in Canada. This activity has been split between 5 producers, who have been competing to make the best of this exciting play. In fact, one section of the Marten Hills field saw licensing activity from 4 different producers in the past 18 months. In order to help our readers better understand recent activity in this field, we’ve performed a summary analysis. As a refresher on the major players in the Marten Hills field, check the map below for an illustration of which producers own mineral rights in the area as well as recent production from all wells across the field since January 2018.
Marten Hills Area Mineral Rights (Headwater in blue, Spur in brown, CNRL in red, Tamarack Valley in yellow)
In terms of new licensing activity, we’ve seen 388 new Marten/Marten Hills licences since January 1, 2022. As mentioned above, this activity was split between only 5 producers: Headwater, Rubellite, CNRL, Spur, and Tamarack Valley. Headwater led the pack with 158 Marten Hills area licences during this period, followed closely by Tamarack Valley with 124 and Spur Petroleum with 78. We also prepared a chart detailing the number of wells spud by each producer over the past 5 years. While spud counts varied significantly and dropped for each Marten Hills producer in 2020, Headwater has been drilling the most aggressively in this peer group.
Marten/Marten Hills Wells Licensed Since January 2022 (ownership according to legend in top right)
There are a number of townships that have been particularly busy over the past 18 months; several have more than 3 producers with multiple new licences, providing a good opportunity for well performance comparisons. In particular, Tamarack and Spur appear to be competing fiercely in multiple areas of the field. This is particularly true in townships 076-05W5, 075-25W4, 074-25W4, where wells from the two companies have been spud in very close proximity. See a well map covering township 076-05W5 from Petro Ninja below:
Wells located in or near section 076-05W5 (Tamarack Valley in grey, Spur Petroleum in brown, Headwater in green)
Since the beginning of 2022, we’ve observed two major transactions impacting the primary Marten Hills producers. Firstly, Tamarack Valley acquired Deltastream Energy Corp. for $1.425 billion in September 2022. So far, we’ve observed 350 Clearwater well licences and over 218 land sections change hands as a result of this transaction. The other major transfer, which we covered back in November 2022, was between Spur Petroleum and Cenovus. We’ve observed 114.17 land section and 99 well licence transfers filter through government data as a result of this transaction, although many of these are not Marten/Marten Hills assets.
With respect to production from Marten Hills wells licensed since January 2022, Headwater and CNRL account for 9 of the top 10 wells with the 10th most productive well belonging to Tamarack Valley. With respect to May 2023 gross licensed production from wells licensed since January 1, 2022, Headwater tops all producers with almost 11,000 BOE/d. Tamarack and Spur are 2nd and 3rd, producing 8,365 and 6,224 BOE/d respectively. Spur’s production appears to have trailed off in 2023, which may be a result of spud activity that has trended downwards since 2021.
Top 10 Wells
| UWI | Licensee | Spud Date | Recent Oil (BBL/d) | Recent Gas (mcf/d) | Recent Equivalent (BOE/d) |
| 100083307324W400 | Canadian Natural Resources Limited | 2022-08-16 | 411 | 278 | 458 |
| 102093307324W400 | Canadian Natural Resources Limited | 2022-09-13 | 388 | 312 | 440 |
| 100052707502W504 | Headwater Exploration Inc. | 2023-01-10 | 408 | 176 | 438 |
| 100042107425W400 | Headwater Exploration Inc. | 2022-09-13 | 367 | 272 | 412 |
| 100013307324W400 | Canadian Natural Resources Limited | 2022-08-04 | 385 | 111 | 404 |
| 102062707502W500 | Headwater Exploration Inc. | 2023-01-09 | 375 | 164 | 403 |
| 105052107425W400 | Headwater Exploration Inc. | 2022-10-29 | 348 | 254 | 391 |
| 100141607502W502 | Headwater Exploration Inc. | 2023-02-09 | 366 | 97 | 382 |
| 102042107425W400 | Headwater Exploration Inc. | 2022-10-28 | 340 | 202 | 374 |
| 100081107605W500 | Tamarack Valley Energy Ltd. | 2022-11-13 | 358 | 35 | 364 |
This analysis was made possible with BOE Intel and Petro Ninja. For more information or to arrange a demo, please feel free to contact us.