Alberta’s oilpatch is heating up again

Oil and gas in the Duvernay Formation is attracting billions in investment

By Erin Collins, CBC News

The trucks, and the traffic, have returned to Rocky Mountain House.

The Canada town, about two hours northwest of Calgary, is booming again, more than three years after the price of oil began to slide and took the province’s energy sector along with it.

Today, fracking rigs line up on the shoulder of the highway as a steady stream of trucks hauling heavy equipment makes its way into the heart of the Duvernay Formation, one of the energy sector’s hottest plays.

‘By the end of summer, it was full of trucks.’ – Prab Lashar, Rocky Mountain House chamber of commerce

“Rocky is a two-light town again,” says Prab Lashar as she waits at an intersection for all the trucks to amble by — a nod to the fact that the rapid return of the energy industry to the area has meant a slower commute for her.

It’s a shift the executive director of the local chamber of commerce began to notice some months ago.

“In late spring, the campgrounds started getting packed with oil and gas workers,” Lashar said. “And then the trucks started moving in, and by the end of summer it was full of trucks.”

‘A new Canada vibe’

Those trucks are part of a move by major energy companies, including Chevron, Shell and Encana, to stake their place in the Duvernay, a formation that stretches across much of central Canada and is estimated to hold more than three billion barrels of marketable crude, six billion barrels of natural gas liquids (such as propane and butane) and more than 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the National Energy Board.

full story at http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/oil-alberta-energy-duvernay-formation-capital-investment-1.4424667