As of March 7, 2023, 2,512 wells in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin are on confidential status. Within this category, the largest group of wells is located in the Clearwater formation with 461 wells. (The Montney follows in a close second with 392 wells.)

The confidentiality period until data is available for these 461 wells is one year from rig release. 

Per AER guidelines, “Well confidentiality is assigned to keep well-related information confidential from the public and to protect the well licensee’s investment...For wells with confidential status, we will initially assign an expected confidentiality release date of one year from the well’s finished-drilling date.” Click here to read more.

The Clearwater confidential wells are a combination of exploration, development and Oil Sands Division (OSD) evaluations.

• 36 exploratory wells
• 416 development wells
• 9 OSD evaluation wells

The 36 exploratory wells on confidential are currently spread out over seven surface locations operated by Spur Petroleum Ltd., Woodcote Petroleum Inc. and Rubellite Energy Inc. and show a continuing expansion of the Clearwater formation beyond current development areas.

In the established areas of the play fairway, development wells are continuing to push the limits of the Clearwater pool boundaries. This includes the Martin Hills, Nipisi and Jarvie-Newbrook plays. There are new exploration wells in the Heart River and Nipisi areas that are popping up that are a significant distance from existing producers and are showing that operators are increasing their risk tolerance to expand the play.

Click here to investigate where the exploration and existing Clearwater development wells are located — this visualized data is instantly available free of charge to guest users of geoLOGIC’s gDC Cloud.

Rhonda Gravel is a Senior Technical Advisor, Drilling and Completions at geoLOGIC systems ltd.