Devon tops OGFJ Canadian 100 in assets, is 8th in production
Once again, Oil & Gas Financial Journal has teamed up with Calgary-based Woodside Research to provide subscribers with financial and operating information about the Canadian oil and gas industry. This report contains information from The CanOils Database® for the first half of 2006.
Financial data are for the entire company (in Cdn dollars), not just the Canadian operations. This list excludes private companies in Canada and subsidiaries of the world’s super majors. As noted, a handful of companies report production After Royalties, not the Canadian practice of Before Royalties.
US-based Devon Energy heads the list based on total assets and is the eighth largest in Canadian production (barrels equivalent per day or boe/d), but overall, EnCana is tops in production.
Denbury originated as a Canadian company that employed a standard made-in-Canada strategy in the US: buying non-core assets from the majors. It has not had Canadian production for years but trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Many Canadian-based companies have small or no Canadian production but operate in other parts of the world. Only Centurion (in North Africa), was large enough to make the top 100. Niko Resources (in India and Bangladesh) is not on the list because its first half ends September 30.
While Nexen and Talisman are Canadian majors, only 25% and 41% of their production is from Canada compared to US-based Devon, Pogo Producing, and Forest with 28%, 38%, and 27% Canadian production. Apache is a global player with just 19% of its production in Canada while Pioneer stands at just 8%.
Among the largest Canadian E&P companies are well-known EnCana, Canadian Natural, Talisman, and Nexen, but many of the entries below these on the list are royalty trusts, not companies. Trusts: Penn West, Enerplus, Canadian Oilsands, Canetic, ARC, Pengrowth, Harvest, and Bonavista all produced over 50,000 boe/d.
The face of the modern Canadian oil and gas industry, within this sample, is fewer than 25 companies ranking more than 50,000 boe/d and more than 250 publicly-traded juniors. There are also over 700 private oil and gas companies in Western Canada.
Of the top 60 companies, few are pure exploration and production companies. The group is dominated by 5 Canadian integrateds, 4 Canadian global majors, 7 US subsidiaries, and 33 royalty trusts.
Only 10, Compton, (Centurion operates only in North Africa), Paramount Resources (not the trust), Duvernay, NuVista, Highpine, Real, Pan-Ocean, Rider, Galleon, and Cyries can be classified as “Canadian-focused” E&P companies.
Anadarko has defined its Canadian division as “discontinued” pending its sale. Canadian production was about 54,000 boe/d for 1Q06 for total world of 419,000 boe/d. It will not appear on our next Canadian Top 100.
