I haven't completed my research yet, but this is what I have discovered so far:
1) There were about 2700 wells drilled in Alberta in 2016, about 1800 wells in Saskatchewan in 2016, and BC drilled about 1000 wells. The number of wells drilled in 2016 are at least a 50% drop over activity when oil prices were higher.
2) There is an expectation that 2017 drilling will equal or exceed the 2016 drilling activity.
3) The oil sands in northern Alberta contain an estimated 310,000 MMBB (310 billion barrels) that at current production rates of 2.3 MBB/day have a life expectancy of 375 years of reserves with current technology.
4) (This is the info that floored me). Alberta has an estimated 415 billion barrels of unconventional shale oil/oil equivalent (source is the Alberta energy regulator). This shale oil can only be recovered by fracking.
5) The combination of the oil sands reserves and the unconventional shale estimated reserves makes Alberta the location of the worlds largest oil reserves.
The majority (up to 90%) of wells being drilled in BC and Alberta are now being fracked. I will do more research on this and report later.
Based on some very preliminary information, the amount of sand for a fracked well can range from 2000 tons to 10,000 tons. The more sand used the more the well produced. I am going to try and get better info regarding this. If anyone can provide better info on sand use per well it would be appreciated.
If an assumption that half the wells drilled in Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC were fracked (this is just to try and get a feel for the demand for sand) in 2016, that would mean that 5500 x 1/2 = 2750 wells used sand. If we assume the low number for sand used per well of 2000 tons then the demand would be 2750 x 2000 = 5,500,000 tons in 2016. Anyone, please feel free to add your thoughts on this number. This does not include the drilling activity in the US side of the Balken. I have to do a lot more research on this estimate, so please assume that this is just a guess at this time and could be dramatically different.
Again,for the purpose of this discussion only, based on these estimated quanties for sand and based on the estimated unconventional shale oil reserve in Alberta alone, it appears that the demand for frac sand is mind boggling and it will exist for many hundreds of years. I have to emphasize that this is speculative at this point and will be doing more research to provide more accurate info.
Even this preliminary discussion on demand suggests that NAFS is in a prime location to service the huge demand that is in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC for the next couple of centuries.
Comments are appreciated.
