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Gordon J. Kerr
President & Chief Executive Officer
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$1.7 Billion the acquisition of Focus Energy is the largest in our history
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PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
As we move forward into 2008 it's important to reflect on the
events that took place in 2007 that significantly impacted our
business and that will continue to shape our activities going
forward. 2007 was filled with many challenges:
- The Canadian government's announcement of a tax to be
imposed on trusts commencing in 2011 was enacted in
mid 2007.
- The Alberta government announced changes to its royalty
regime to commence in 2009. Those most affected are oil
and gas producers in the province with deep exploration
targets where provincial royalty taxes could increase by
66% compared to the existing regime. The government has
indicated it will review for unintended consequences relative
to deep and multi-lateral wells, however there is no assurance
a change will be made. Given the nature of our operations in
the province we have estimated the impact on our 2007 cash
flow, had the new rules been in place, would have been
approximately a 2% reduction.
- Green house gas emission management and associated
climate change initiatives continued to garner global and local
attention. Governments are continuing to move forward to
put regimes in place intended to reduce GHG emissions.
- Concerns over a U.S. led recession were compounded by the
sub prime credit crisis.
- Low natural gas prices continued while oil prices continued
to rise with the WTI reference price hitting US$100 albeit
this rise was partially offset by a weakened U.S. dollar.
- Increased global demand for energy continued as supplies
tightened and were further impacted by political tensions
and government interventions.
- Natural gas continued to become more of a global commodity
through expanding markets for liquefied natural gas.
All of these events influenced Enerplus in 2007 and will shape
our actions as we move forward in 2008. Our highlights for
2007 included:
- Cash distributions maintained at CDN$0.42 per month
and our 28th consecutive month at this level.
- We replaced 90% of our produced reserves resulting
in a 1% reduction in our proved plus probable reserves
year-over-year and a reserve life index of 14.0 years post
the Focus transaction.
- Achieved a finding, development and acquisition cost including
future development costs of under $20/BOE and a recycle
ratio of 1.6 times in respect of our conventional operations.
- Daily production averaged 82,319 BOE/day compared
to our guidance of 82,500 BOE/day. We did experience
a disappointment with our year-end exit production at
79,800 BOE/day versus our target of 83,000 BOE/day. Exit
production was impacted by a fire at our Giltedge facility
shutting in 2,000 BOE/day of production. As well, deferred
tie-ins and a line break primarily on non-operated properties
resulted in a further reduction of 1,200 BOE/day from our exit
target. We expect all of these volumes to be re-established
through the first half of 2008.
- Acquired a 100% working interest in the Kirby oil sands lease
for $203 million. Kirby is an operated in situ opportunity which
we believe has the potential to add 30,000 to 40,000 bbls/day
of production to Enerplus over time.
- Closed the $1.7 billion merger with Focus Energy Trust, the
largest acquisition in our history, on February 13, 2008.
- Maintained our financial strength with a debt to trailing
cash flow ratio of 0.8x, raised $210.6 million of equity in
conjunction with our acquisition of Kirby and increased our
unsecured bank credit facility to $1.4 billion concurrent with
the closing of our Focus acquisition.
In 2008 our key objectives are to:
- Fully integrate and achieve the expected benefits of our
combination with Focus.
- production targeted to average 98,000 BOE/day, split
61% natural gas and 39% oil and natural gas liquids,
and exit at 100,000 BOE/day.
- execute on our capital projects with targeted spending
of $580 million including $475 million allocated to our
conventional oil and gas assets and $105 million to
our oil sands assets at Kirby and Joslyn.
- control costs with operating expenses targeted at
$8.65/BOE and general administration costs at
$2.20/BOE, both down slightly from 2007 and
finding and development costs, including future
costs, at under $20 per BOE.
- Continue to develop our existing portfolio of properties.
- We currently have identified over $2.3 billion of potential
projects on our conventional oil and gas assets alone. This
includes over 4,000 net wells and would represent 4-5 years
of spending at current levels.
- Continue to advance our oil sands projects at both Kirby
and Joslyn. At Kirby we are targeting to file our regulatory
application for a 10,000 barrel per day SAGD (in situ)
facility by year-end. At Joslyn we expect to reach conclusions
with our operating partner, Total, on full lease development
plans. The key questions to be answered in respect of Joslyn
will be to determine whether to expand mining with a smaller
(10,000 bbls/day) SAGD development or pursue a smaller
mine with a larger (25,000 bbls/day) SAGD development.
We continue to review our options for financing our oil sands
opportunities, which could include the sale of a portion of our
oil sands portfolio, debt, partnering opportunities or special
purpose equity.
- Seek additional acquisition opportunities in and around
our existing areas of operations (Canada and U.S.) to
help replace produced reserves and expand future
development opportunities.
Enerplus is well positioned to continue to grow and add value for
our unitholders. We have increased our position in high quality
natural gas assets with the acquisition of Focus that together
with our existing conventional assets have many years of further
development opportunities. We have established a meaningful
position in the Alberta oil sands with the opportunity to achieve net
production of approximately 60,000 BOE/day over time. We've
established a significant position in the Bakken oil play in Montana
and an office in Denver to facilitate further growth in the U.S.
Once again, I extend my thanks to my fellow board members
for their guidance, my fellow employees at Enerplus for their
continued commitment to the success of Enerplus and to our
unitholders for their support particularly over the trying period
since the October 2006 announcement of the Canadian federal
government. I also extend my welcome to our newest board
members, Mr. Robert Hodgins, Mr. Clayton Woitas and Mr. David
O'Brien who bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to
Enerplus. Also my thanks to Mr. Robert Normand who will retire
at our annual general and special meeting. Mr. Normand has
served as a director at Enerplus since 1998.
Our opportunities for continued growth have been clearly
articulated. We have re-iterated our ongoing commitment to
our distributing business model and focus on being a top tier oil
and gas organization. We are confident we will make significant
advancement on our opportunities in 2008.
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