Abu Dhabi enters Horn River shale play

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Gary Park

For Petroleum News

Taqa North, an arm of Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., has extended its presence in Canada by acquiring two large exploration licenses in the Horn River shale gas play of northeastern British Columbia.

The company disclosed it spent C$63.27 million at the B.C. government’s June 17 land sale for the blocks 30 miles north of Fort Nelson.

The 10 large blocks on offer at the sale represented the last substantial blocks of land available in the basin, Taqa North said.

The purchases were made through broker Scott Land and Lease, which paid C$62.53 million for one parcel covering just over 13,000 acres and C$733,960 for another block of almost 18,500 acres.

In the same sale sister companies Imperial Oil and ExxonMobil Canada teamed up to acquire eight Horn River licenses for C$113 million.

Appraisal wells this winter

Taqa North said companies have spent about C$1.3 billion over the past three years on Horn River land purchases and drilled 75 wells in the basin, demonstrating the “highly competitive and prospective nature of the area and the widespread belief that the basin will provide a major North American source of natural gas in the future.”

Taqa North has already established a presence in northern British Columbia by holding 75 million cubic feet per day of capacity on the 1.3 billion-cubic-feet-per-day Alliance pipeline which connects the region to the Chicago market.

Since being formed almost two years ago, Taqa North has acquired Northrock Resources, Pioneer Natural Resources and Prime West Energy Trust for a combined C$7.5 billion to become Canada’s 12th largest oil and gas producer at about 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and has targeted spending another C$12 billion building its business in Canada by 2012.