PetroBakken, one of the pacemakers in Saskatchewan’s Bakken and Alberta’s Cardium, has reported an active first quarter, drilling 53 wells, placing 40 on production and entering the second quarter with 30 wells waiting to be brought onstream.
But both the industry and the Saskatchewan government are on edge as they face the prospect of damaging spring floods.
Although PetroBakken’s well activity was down from the final quarter of 2012, first quarter production rose to 49,079 barrels of oil equivalent per day (82 percent light oil and liquids weighted), up 4 percent from the previous quarter and 5 percent from the same quarter of 2012.
The company said most of its drilling occurred in the Bakken, where 15 wells were drilled and 14 were placed on production, and Cardium, where 23 wells were drilled and 17 placed on production.
Bakken production averaged 19,000 boe per day, down 700 boe per day from the fourth quarter of last year, while the Cardium yielded 20,600 boe per day, up 8 percent from the final three months of last year.
Spring downtime
PetroBakken said it now anticipates spring downtime because of road bans and weather related conditions, which could be prolonged by early summer rains, but it is still targeting average production of 46,00-48,000 boe per day for 2013, exiting the year at 49,000-52,000 boe per day.
Based on greater than normal precipitation in March, the government is already braced for a possible repeat of significant flooding two years ago, which shut in about 20 percent of production and has provided more than 200 communities with information and advice on what they can do to prevent and respond to flooding.
The government has also activated an emergency response team to deal with any infrastructure challenges.
“The annual forecasts include higher downtime factors for this period,” PetroBakken said.
However, the company said that compared with previous years, it expects the impact of spring breakup to be reduced “as our production base is more mature and more wells have been tied in to infrastructure.
“In addition, new wells and the debottlenecking of restricted production in the Cardium business unit in the second quarter will help mitigate the impact of spring breakup.”
—Gary Park
