Light Crude Oil & NGLs
North America
Canadian Natural produces light crude oil and NGLs in all of its western Canadian core regions. While light crude oil recoveries are modest, the availability and development of new technology leads to improving recovery factors, adding significant leverage to Canadian Natural. All of these projects are low risk but do require rigorous geological and engineering analysis in order to be successful.
Canadian Natural has extensive land base with large, premium drill to fill inventory of defined development projects that leverages existing owned and operated infrastructure. The Company has a large light crude oil and NGL land base across the high value liquids-rich Montney and Duvernay fairways.
International
Canadian Natural’s International operations provide a committed source of light crude oil production. The Company leverages its experience in mature, low risk, development basins in North America to those found offshore. International efforts are concentrated in two core areas – the UK portion of the North Sea, and Offshore Africa, specifically Côte d’Ivoire.
In the United Kingdom’s (“UK”) portion of the North Sea, our focus is on managing our infrastructure, platform maintenance and mature basin development. This approach ultimately prolongs the life and economic value of our assets. We operate the vast majority of our fields in the North Sea with a high average working interest, giving us control of our assets. We are proactively decommissioning this mature field as future development is uneconomic.
Long-term, our objective for the UK North Sea is to maintain production and proactively manage our abandonment liabilities of this mature asset. Mature field declines will be offset with development projects and infill drilling, provided conditions warrant economic investment.
The Offshore Africa assets deliver high value, light crude oil, providing development opportunities with significant exploration upside with some of the highest returning projects in the Company’s portfolio. Canadian Natural has capitalized on a unique government relations niche, while leveraging technical and operational expertise from the North Sea operations.
In Côte d’Ivoire, the Espoir development is produced from two reservoirs – East and West Espoir – located approximately 60 kilometers southwest of Abidjan, capital of Côte d’Ivoire. The light crude oil is processed, stored and offloaded via a floating production storage and offtake (FPSO) vessel.
Also in Côte d’Ivoire, the Baobab field is located south of Espoir in deep water Block CI-40. Baobab is located approximately 8 kilometers south of Espoir in deep water. As with Espoir, Baobab uses a FPSO to process, store and export light crude oil.