Canada’s Montney and Duverney: North America’s most abundant unconventional resource plays

LNG and top-tier economics expected to drive these basins for decades

byEnverus

CALGARY, Alberta (Nov. 20, 2024) — Enverus Intelligence® Research (EIR), a subsidiary of Enverus, the most trusted energy-dedicated SaaS company that leverages generative AI across its solutions, is releasing its annual Montney and Duvernay Play Fundamentals that examines recent drilling trends, well inventory counts and associated economics within both Canadian plays.

“The Montney holds the longest runway of North American unconventional resource plays, with in excess of 45 years of drilling inventory at current development pace,” said Trevor Rix, principal analyst at EIR.

“Through 2023 and 2024 we have seen a rapid ramp-up of British Columbia Montney development, driven both by LNG supply builds as well as by the top-tier economics of the liquids-driven Attachie/Blueberry region,” Rix added.

“Led by the development activity of Veren and Paramount, the Duvernay play is seeing record levels of capital deployed,” Rix said.

Key takeaways from the report:

  • The Montney offers decades of economic drilling inventory for energy companies. The play represents the largest natural gas resource play in Canada, and is located in northeastern British Colombia and northwestern Alberta.
  • Areas that produce at least 10% natural gas liquids at the wellhead offer the best economics. The best regions for natural gas are economic at current NYMEX prices.
  • The scheduled 2025 start of a liquefied natural gas plant in B.C (LNG Canada Phase I, expected onstream in 2025) is spurring a drilling boom as energy companies prepare to supply the plant with about 2.1 Bcf/d of feed gas.

Play Fundamentals is an EIR research series that dives into a key geographical basin or technology. A collective series, with each play updated annually, it includes technical research and interactive maps, investment opportunities, benchmarking, macro trends and basin analytics, empowering readers to make intelligent connections and, overall, more informed investment, operating and strategic decisions. It is considered the most in-depth research EIR offers and among the most-read analysis series in the energy industry.

EIR’s analysis pulls from a variety of Enverus products including Enverus Intelligence® Research, Placed Wells Analytics, Enverus Forecast Analytics, Enverus Spacing and Enverus Geoscience Analytics.

You must be an Enverus Intelligence® subscriber to access this report.

About Enverus Intelligence® Research
Enverus Intelligence ® | Research, Inc. (EIR) is a subsidiary of Enverus that publishes energy-sector research focused on the oil, natural gas, power and renewable industries. EIR publishes reports including asset and company valuations, resource assessments, technical evaluations and macro-economic forecasts; and helps make intelligent connections for energy industry participants, service companies and capital providers worldwide. Enverus is the most trusted, energy-dedicated SaaS company, with a platform built to create value from generative AI, offering real-time access to analytics, insights and benchmark cost and revenue data sourced from our partnerships to 95% of U.S. energy producers, and more than 40,000 suppliers. Learn more at Enverus.com.

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