A quick Bakken guide

Reports by brokerage firm BMO Nesbitt Burns, investment banker and brokerage firm Macquarie Capital and Haywood Securities have all identified the Alberta Bakken as a deep, over-pressured formation, causing them to believe that the economics may have an edge over the main Canadian Bakken play in Viewfield, south-central Saskatchewan, but lower than the North Dakota Bakken.

BMO believes producers in the Alberta Bakken will recover 250,000 barrels per well at a three-month initial production average of 348 barrels per day at a break-even supply cost of $41.25-$42.20 per barrel, which it rates as being just below the Saskatchewan Bakken.

“Ultimately, when comparing the Alberta Bakken type well to the Saskatchewan Bakken type wells, the Alberta Bakken — due to the overall thickness of the reservoir, and the overpressured, Deep basin setting — has the potential for a highly economic well,” BMO said.

Macquarie said to the west in southern Alberta and British Columbia, the lower Bakken members correlate with the Exshaw formation, while the upper Bakken member is similar to the black shale unit of the Banff formation.

It said the Exshaw/Bakken represents a petroleum system that can be “tracked from source to trap.”

The Exshaw/Bakken is considered the most conducive to horizontal multistage fracturing given that “most of the oil remains contained within the member.”

—Gary Park

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