frontlines
Unconventional ascending
For more than 30 years, Oilweek ’s top 100 has been tracking the rise
of unconventional oil and gas in western canada
over the 30-plus years that Oilweek has
been publishing its top 100 feature, the
annual ranking has come to serve as a
serial snapshot, tracing the ebb and flow
of the industry from year to year, decade
to decade.
in the beginning, the survey merely
took in production figures: in the first
survey (which presented the top 20
producers), imperial oil was canada’s
largest liquids producer, with 231,000
barrels per day of production, all of it from conventional fields
in western canada. Shell canada was the top gas producer,
pumping more than 600 million cubic feet per day from its hold-
ings, mostly along the foothills in alberta.
the infant unconventional oil business was represented by
Sun oil and its great canadian oil Sands (gcoS) project at Fort
mcmurray. Sun’s total production in 1978 (including bitumen
from gcoS) averaged 59,600 barrels per day.
Dale Lunan
Oilweek expanded its coverage in 1985 to take in a true survey of the industry’s top 100, capturing reserves information
along with production data, although totals were not provided.
imperial oil topped the liquids reserves table, at 171.8 million
cubic metres (a little over a billion barrels, thanks to its cold
Lake, Judy creek, and norman wells reserves), while dome
Petroleum, at the peak of its power in the west, topped the gas
reserves chart, at 131.6 billion cubic metres, or about 4. 66 trillion cubic feet.
But that was then—unconventional oil was but a drop in the
proverbial bucket—and this is now.
Since the dawn of the new millennium, conventional
oil and gas in western canada has been ebbing, while the
unconventional sector has been flowing—at times gently, at
other times frantically, as the oilsands gather momentum and
coalbed methane, and now shale gas, exert growing influence
on the north american natural gas economy. this shift away
from the conventional is tracked in our top 100.
in 2000, as we surveyed reserves as they stood at the end of
1999, natural gas was still king: 126 companies in the top 100
and the next 26 had combined gas reserves of some 46. 2 tril-
lion cubic feet (although no distinctions were made then, nor
are made now, as to what proportion of that total might be con-
ventional gas, what might be cBm, what might be shale gas).
Proved oil and liquids reserves—including modest volumes of
unconventional reserves recognized as proved—amounted to
a little over nine billion barrels, and Suncor energy’s liquids
reserves stood at a reported 439 million barrels.
Since that snapshot, the oilsands have exploded as the alpha
dog in the canadian crude oil pack, and expenditures on mining
and in situ projects have been rising steadily even as spending
on the conventional side has been waning.
the proof of this is in the latest top 100 survey of reserves
as they stood on dec. 31, 2009: natural gas reserves by the
top 100 companies and those in the next 25 category were
down more than 22 per cent, to 35.99 trillion cubic feet, but
oil and liquids reserves—oilsands, conventional heavy and
light crude, natural gas liquids—had nearly doubled, to 17. 2
billion barrels.
we don’t have a crystal ball—who knows what the future
will bring?—but it’s a safe bet that in next year’s top 100, gas
reserves will be climbing again as more and more shale riches
are unlocked, oil reserves will still be dominated by treasures
harboured within the oilsands, and conventional oil will have
slipped a little further towards obscurity.
NEXT MONTH
top dogs
In Oilweek’s first-ever CEO
issue, we’ll present our
first-ever survey of executive
compensation—the low-
down on who makes how
much in the Canadian oil and
gas industry. You might be
surprised.
talking to the chiefs
CEOs get to be CEOs by
thinking big picture.
We’ll talk to three to
uncover what matters
most to those at the top.
the power behind
the patch
And we’ll check in with
executive coaches, a
growing segment of
the human resources
armada who make it their business to help CEOs reach
the top of their business.
