PDF Version: Adjudicating on waterflood enhanced recovery schemes: is it time for compulsory unitization in Alberta?
Hunt and Galleon (and perhaps others) have interests in the same small oil pool and indeed a series of oil pools that are all “in communication” by virtue of a common aquifer. But evidently they cannot agree on how best to develop the pool, or perhaps they cannot agree on how to share the costs and benefits of joint development including the allocation of resulting production. As a result, each of them operates separate waterflood schemes in the same pool. Each such enhanced oil recovery (EOR) scheme needs to be approved by the ERCB under s.39(1)(a) of the Oil and Gas Conservation Act (OGCA), R.S.A. 2000, c. O-6.