MOVING
ON UP
Suncor energy was the big mover in
Oilweek’s latest top 100 survey, riding
the acquisition of Petro-canada to
become canada’s largest crude oil and
liquids producer
It wasn’t exactly unepected. As soon as Suncor Energy
announced last March its $20-billion merger with Petro-Not quite, but pretty close. Suncor jumped four spots in Oilweek’s
Top 100 list this year, based on combined oil and gas production,
to second from sixth as output nearly doubled, to 455,833 barrels
of oil equivalent (boe) per day in 2009 from 264,767 boe per day in
2008. Canadian Natural Resources still leads the list, at 499,300
boe per day, up about 10,000 boe per day from 2008.
On the liquids list, however, Suncor now sits at the peak, with production last year of nearly 400,000 barrels per day, up from 231,000
barrels per day in 2008, when it sat in the fourth slot. Canadian Natural
Resources is a distant second at just under 285,000 barrels per day.
Never big on natural gas, Suncor made a big leap on Oilweek’s gas pro-
duction list, rising to ninth at 374 million cubic feet per day from 16th
at 202 million cubic feet per day in 2008. Encana remains the runaway
biggest gas producer in Canada, at just under two billion cubic feet per
day, while Canadian Natural Resources holds down second spot at about
1. 3 billion cubic feet per day.
Movement within Oilweek’s
Top 100 may have been modest
in 2009; movement into the list
was not, and the latest ranking
includes several new additions:
• Statoil Canada comes onto
the list for the first time in
38th place, with total production of 18,200 boe per
day. It hopes to begin steaming an in situ project in the
oilsands later this year,
and has applied for a significant discovery licence
on its Mizzen prospect in
the Flemish Pass offshore
Newfoundland.
• OPTI Canada hits the Top
100 in the middle of the
pack, landing at 56th with
7,100 boe per day of production, the result of its 35
per cent interest in Nexen’s
Long Lake project.
• Southern Pacific Resource
joins the Top 100 in 67th
spot, with 3,456 boe
per day of production.
Southern Pacific merged
with Rochester Energy in
March 2009 and a month
later acquired privately
owned Saxony Petroleum.
Last November, it bought
5,000 barrels per day of
heavy oil production in
the Senlac area.
• Orion Oil & Gas Corporation
enters the Top 100 in 74th
place, with 2,516 boe per
day of production. Orion
was created in October 2009
when Sprott teamed with a
new management group to
acquire Auriga Energy.
• WestFire Energy comes
in at the 88th spot, with
1,480 boe per day of pro-
duction. Following a series
of acquisitions in 2007 and
2008, West Fire reached a
receivership deal to acquire
certain oil and gas assets
from Action Energy, which
added 625 boe per day of
production.
