West Central Alberta
ProspEx owns 80,000 net acres of undeveloped lands in West Central Alberta, located within five areas: Harmattan, Ricinus, Willesden Green, Garrington, and Edson.
West Central Alberta is ProspEx’s second growth area. Drilling activity in West Central Alberta is primarily oriented toward sweet, pervasively gas-bearing formations in the Cretaceous, with deeper potential in the Jurassic Rock Creek and Mississippian Elkton formations.
ProspEx’s greatest focus in West Central Alberta has been the Cardium formation at Harmattan and Ricinus. At Harmattan, ProspEx has recently completed the development of the Cardium W pool. In Ricinus, a successful drilling program prompted the acquisition of partner interests and additional Crown lands, creating a repeatable, material prospect inventory.
In Willesden Green and Garrington, ProspEx has a concentrated land position, typically held at high working interests. The primary targets in Willesden Green are the Glaucontic, Viking and the deep Rock Creek; while in Garrington, ProspEx has pursued both Ostracod and Elkton prospects. The Ostracod prospects are largely development drilling opportunities, which offset existing production, while the Mississippian Elkton play is a deeper exploration play driven by the interpretation of 3D seismic data.
At Edson, ProspEx has a 35% working interest in an inventory of high impact exploration locations targeting the Devonian Wabamun formation. This play was evaluated by an exploration well drilled in first quarter of 2008, which tested sour gas at a gross rate of 7 million cubic feet per day. The operator has deferred tie-in operations for this well until additional drilling can be completed in order to justify the large capital expense associated with constructing facilities to bring this sour gas project on to production.
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ProspEx holds a total of 15,670 net acres of land in the area that offers a repeatable opportunity in the Cardium formation. Acquisition of partner interests in the area consolidated ProspEx’s ownership, increasing ProspEx’s average working interest from approximately 20% to 90%. ProspEx is now the major owner and operator of the wells and gas gathering system at Ricinus. ProspEx has also expanded its land position in the area via Crown land sales. Ricinus offers three distinct types of opportunity: infill drilling within the currently defined trend, extension of the existing trends and the opportunity to explore for new producing trends analogous to the existing production. ProspEx holds land on trend with existing production where wells can be drilled to potentially extend the limits of existing production. ProspEx also owns mineral rights on lands where our technical work suggests that entirely new trends may be discovered. Collectively, these opportunities provide a significant inventory of future drilling locations to ProspEx. |