Report: Canada’s Pike project expected to commence production in 2019

The Pike project located in the Alberta oil sands has estimated recoverable reserves of 610 million barrels of crude oil, according to a report by GlobalData.

Titled 'Canada Pike (Devon Energy Corporation) Project Panorama – Oil and Gas Upstream Analysis Report', the report provides the development details and outlook of the Devon Energy Corporation-owned project.

The first phase of the Pike project comprises two stages, Pike A and Pike B. Both stages were granted regulatory approval in November 2014 and are currently in the design and planning stages.

The majority of the project’s infrastructure, including a central processing facility, well pads and pipelines, were under construction as of 2014. The pipe road crossings were close to completion during the same year.

As of 2015, Devon completed a stratigraphic drilling programme and spent $38.4m of Pike phase one capital. Well results from the drilling programme have met or exceeded expectations. Devon carried out additional front-end engineering work during the remaining part of 2015.

Pike is the second biggest asset owned by Devon after Jackfish. The company plans to use a similar design and development process in Pike to that of Jackfish in order to bring the production capacity of the asset to 68,477 barrels a day of bitumen by 2024.

Diluted oil sands bitumen produced by Pike will be connected to the Access pipeline for supply to the Edmonton area.

One of the biggest challenges for the project, however, remains to be the low price of bitumen. Based on existing prices, Pike will be able to reach its economic limit after a 30-year production period in 2048.