What is Canadian Natural Resources up to in the Alberta Montney west of Grande Prairie? – BOE Intel

Canadian Natural Resources is the largest and one of, if not the most respected name in the Canadian energy sector. As such, it is always interesting to follow what the company is up to, where it is allocating its capital, and any changes in asset mix or activity levels.

That’s why it was noteworthy over the last 30 days that the company has licensed 31 Montney wells west of Grande Prairie. Prior to these licences, over the last two years CNRL only had 48 other Montney licences in this area, so this appears to be indicating a potential pickup in activity levels at Wembley. The company also only had 34 Montney spuds in this area over the last 2 years, so these licences alone could almost double that recent spud count if drilled.

This area is noteworthy as it is where CNRL acquired the Wembley assets from Cenovus in Q4 2021. At the time of Cenovus’ press release in Q4 2021, the acquiring company was not listed, but the asset transfers have been shown on BOE Intel for some time. Over the last 2 years, CNRL has acquired 123.2 net sections of mineral rights via transfer in this area alone. 91% of those mineral rights transfers were from Cenovus.

Note that in our BOE Intel asset transfer and activity map below, we have drawn in the area that we are focused on, and filtered our results for that area. CNRL’s Crown mineral rights (all zones) are shown in yellow. All mineral rights transfers to CNRL over the last 2 years in the defined area are shown in green and the 31 recent Montney licences are shown in red.

Adding to the intrigue in the area is the recently announced acquisition of Hammerhead Resources by Crescent Point. That transaction was south of Grande Prairie.

While CNRL has only seen moderate (for a company of its size) activity west of Grande Prairie, it did manage to produce 2 of the top 15 oil/condensate wells in the Alberta Montney in the month of September. Those wells were both from the Wembley area.

Plotted below in Figure 1 are all of the 2023 Montney spuds by CNRL from the Wembley area with production results.

Figure 1 – Production results for CNRL 2023 Montney spuds from Wembley area

Below is the list of Alberta Montney wells, ranked by monthly total oil/condensate production in September:

TOP 15 OIL/CONDENSATE WELLS – ALBERTA MONTNEY – SEPTEMBER VOLUMES

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