Good news-47 % increase in well count in 2010And, 2011 is looking very strong too......................very good news
January 1, 2011
Well Count Up 47% Through November, Metres Drilled Surge 65%
Industry will drill more than 12,000 wells this year and more than half of them will be oil wells for the first time since the turn of the century. As of yesterday, the year-to-date well count was 11,853.
With one month of statistics remaining (December), total metres drilled in Canada shows a very healthy 65% jump from last year and the 18.26 million metres of hole drilled is down only 11.6% from 2008. The average depth per well so far in 2010 is a record 1,691 metres as operators are drilling more and longer horizontal wells.
Oil as a percentage of drilling ranged between 19% and 26% from 2001 to 2006 but has been climbing every year since then and settled at 43% in 2009. This year, preliminary Bulletin statistics show about 58% of all wells drilled to the end of November were oil or bitumen wells.
Operators rig released 1,366 new wells during the month of November, the second highest monthly count this year topped only by October's 1,390 wells. Increases were posted across Western Canada with Alberta up 36% to 953 wells, Saskatchewan up 38% to 320 wells, British Columbia up 29% to 44 wells and Manitoba showing an 88% rise to 49 wells from 26 wells in November 2009.
The overall rig release count of 1,366 wells compares to 995 a year ago and 1,682 wells in November 2008.
The November spud count was 1,430 wells as industry began to ramp winter drilling programs.
Through the first 11 months of 2010, operators rig released 10,809 wells, a major 47% surge from only 7,374 wells in 2009 which was the weakest year for drilling in Canada since 1992. The January through November 2008 period saw 15,618 wells drilled.
In percentage terms, this year's increase to the end of November was greatest in Manitoba and weakest in British Columbia.
Alberta operators finished work on 7,207 wells to the end of November, a 43% rise from 5,034 wells last year while Saskatchewan companies rig released 2,508 wells, a 58% surge from 1,581 in 2009. For the month of November, Saskatchewan drilling west of the third meridian was particularly busy with 240 wells rig released, the most for W3M since November 2003.
Over the first 11 months of 2010, 2,329 of the wells drilled in Saskatchewan were licensed for oil targets while only 92 were targeting natural gas. In Alberta, the split was much more balanced with 3,522 wells approved for oil or bitumen versus 3,405 targetting natural gas or