All / Sarcee & Canadian 88 Wilcats
A little background leading up to current events.
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Thursday 17 October 1996
Wildcats
Natural gas hopes thrive in foothills
The Calgary Herald
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Deep wildcat drilling in Alberta's foothills could jump dramatically as a group of companies prepares to test two potentially rich natural-gas discoveries.
Greg Noval, president of Canadian 88 Energy Corp., said his firm's success at Burmis, along Highway 3 through the Crowsnest Pass, has generated enough interest to create a $150-million drilling fund with Canadian and U.S. financing.
Canadian 88 will spend the next month testing two high-potential gas formations discovered during the drilling of its $7- million Burmis well this summer.
"We think there's a nice pot of reserves there," Noval said Wednesday.
The fund, backed one-third each by Canadian 88, a group of pension funds and an unnamed independent U.S. oil company, will be called the Rocky Mountain Wildcat Fund, Noval said.
"It's a bit of a war chest to go for some more," said Noval, who added that his company is lining up the right of way to build a gas pipeline to Shell Canada Ltd.'s Waterton gas plant in the southwest corner of Alberta.
A little closer to Calgary, a consortium of small companies is planning its own production test during the next week of a long-delayed well drilled this spring just west of Calgary on the Tsuu T'ina Indian Reserve.
The well drilled through two formations, 171 metres and 166 meters thick, which the consortium believes contain sour gas. The prospect lies between two of Alberta's large gas pools sitting to the north and south.
This target was not drilled until favorable terms could be worked out with Tsuu T'ina Indian band, which will earn part of any gas-reserve found.
"I don't know for sure that it's gas. I want you to know that this is the oil business. We think it is, and that's why we did this. This is a risky business," said Bob Leslie, president of Mart Resources Inc., the lead company on the project.
The well was drilled early in 1996 by Young West Oil & Gas Ltd., but financing for a test ran out.
Mart worked out a deal late this summer to get the project back on track.
Leslie said the consortium, which includes Dynamic Ventures Ltd., Dalton Resources Ltd. and Neutrino Resources Inc., should know within two weeks what it's found. |
