Opportunity awaits ... CJ , AXE needs to giddy up CJ bought Broadview Energy's Sasketchwan heavy oil properties last spring time. Last week Cardinal Energy's Q3 announces their new core area, Saskatewan Thermal Heavy Oil space. They FID the Reford prospect targeting 6k boepd thermal oil using conventional SAGD tech. CJ has confirmed Reford geological metrics and trend. They still have 2 more prospects besides Reford, and one of them Kelfield is shovel ready at 10K boepd target.
Several years ago, it identified steam assisted gravity drainage as an area that could provide it with growth and further decrease its decline levels. It was able to acquire assets from Broadview Energy Ltd. earlier this year that had been significantly derisked and advanced, and that fit its requirements, and with additional lands acquired at land sales, it is confident that it has three projects that can be commercially developed.
From Broadview:
Three Commercial SAGD Projects
• Reford –approved for 6,000 bopd(could be expanded to 10,000 bopd), is shovel ready for commercial development
• Kelfield –approved for 10,000 bopd, is shovel ready for commercial development
• Handel –resource size supports at least 6,000 bopdwith current geological mapping
–delineation of the size and extent of the resource will be determined with additional stratwell drilling
• Combined production potential of 22,000 –30,000 bopdwith a 15 –20 year RLI (reserve life index)
• 91 million barrels of proven, probable + possible reserves at Reford and Kelfield as evaluated by McDaniel and Associates
CJ looking happy to budget C$68mm in 2024 and then C$88mm in 2025 to complete it. That ~C$26k per flowing barrels in capex.
CJ.t has convinced John Festival ( board, president and CEO of Broadview Energy , our former Marwayne project's landloard) to join the board of CJ.t
The company would also like to announce the appointment of John Festival to the board. Mr. Festival has had a 35-plus-year career of discovering and developing heavy oil and thermal projects. He started at Home Oil Company and worked in Lloydminster as an engineer at the Kitscoty cyclic steam project. He then joined Koch Exploration Canada Corp. and, alongside a technical team, established operations across all the heavy oil regions of Western Canada. At the time, Koch was the largest leaseholder in the Alberta oil sands, including operatorship of the Fort Hills mine asset. Mr. Festival and the senior technical team from Koch moved on to BlackRock Ventures Inc., where they discovered primary heavy oil in the Seal area of Alberta. They also piloted and initiated the Orion SAGD project, one of the first SAGD projects in the Clearwater zone, which continues to operate today. After selling BlackRock to Shell Canada Ltd. for $2.4-billion in 2006, his team went onto transform BlackPearl Resources Inc. into a thermal heavy oil player at Onion Lake, Sask. At BlackPearl, they also piloted the Blackrod SAGD project in Alberta and then merged with International Petroleum Corp. in 2019. IPC has since sanctioned a commercial project at Blackrod, the first successful SAGD project in the Grand Rapids formation, with an initial phase of 30,000 bopd. In 2019, Mr. Festival was appointed chief executive officer of Broadview, a Saskatchewan thermal development company. Cardinal acquired the Broadview assets in April of 2023.
As well as becoming a board member, Mr. Festival will be representing the shareholders on the reserves, audit, and environment, social and governance committees.
CJ also announced Heath Williamson (on the AXE advisory board) to join CJ as it :
As it builds out its thermal asset team, it would like to introduce Heath Williamson as its manager of thermal oil. Mr. Williamson graduated from the University of Alberta with a BSc in petroleum engineering in 2007, along with several years of field operating experience as an engineering student at BlackRock. He then joined BlackPearl in 2009, where he gained extensive SAGD experience alongside Mr. Festival, including piloting the Blackrod SAGD project as asset manager and developing the Onion Lake thermal project as general manager, thermal and enhanced oil recovery. In 2019, Mr. Williamson took on the role of director of asset development and new ventures at IPC following its merger with BlackPearl. In 2020 and 2021, Mr. Williamson took on a variety of roles as an independent consultant, where he evaluated heavy oil opportunities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Latin America, while also supporting Mr. Festival at Broadview as a technical and business development adviser. Prior to joining Cardinal, Mr. Williamson was employed at Athabasca Oil Corp. as its manager of sustainability, where he evaluated carbon capture utilization and storage opportunities. Mr. Williamson was previously vice-president of the Canadian Heavy Oil Association and has frequently spoken at industry conferences.
It is also fortunate to have Greg Brown on its staff. Mr. Brown, an experienced explorationist, joined Cardinal in 2014 and worked in its Southern Alberta area for many years. He has had previous SAGD development experience at BlackPearl with both Mr. Festival and Mr. Williamson, and will work with the thermal team using his past experiences to help develop and explore for additional opportunities.