Production
Penn West's production comes from a portfolio of properties concentrated in three core areas within the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in Alberta, Saskatchewan and northeast British Columbia. Penn West operates a high proportion of its production, and holds properties at high average working interests.
*Production breakdown as at September 30, 2009
Penn West's production base includes:
- Shallow to medium-depth natural gas;
- NGL (natural gas liquids such as ethane, propane and butane);
- Conventional light and medium-gravity crude oil;
- Conventional heavy crude oil;
- Bitumen or oil sands that can be cold-pumped without thermal technology; and
- Two very large light oil fields with strong potential for enhanced oil recovery using carbon dioxide (CO2) miscible flooding.
With an overall reserve-life-index (RLI) of 11.1 years (at December 31, 2008), Penn West's diversified production base is well suited to an energy trust. The Trust's production base represents a balanced portfolio of assets providing a range of upside opportunities as well as commodity, geographical and technical risk mitigation. These characteristics support stable production volumes, which in turn are supportive of stable cash distributions for the longer term.