In 2007, we purchased a 100% working interest in the Kirby oil sands lease. The Kirby lease is situated in the heart of the Athabasca oil sands fairway in northeastern Alberta. We own nearly 43,000 acres on three lease areas within this region. Phase 1 of the Kirby project is located within the northernmost lease. Our lease is in a strategic area within the oil sands fairway, with rail, highway and export pipeline access situated on or near the lease itself. Kirby is surrounded by other major SAGD projects such as Devon Jackfish, EnCana Christina Lake project, Canadian Natural Kirby and many other large commercial SAGD operations.

On April 17, 2009 we announced our deferral of further development of Kirby. While we believe there is long-term value in the Kirby project, the current cost structures, commodity price environment and our cost of capital do not offer a sufficient return for additional investment toward project sanctioning at this time.

Enerplus will be completing several key activities to wrap up current efforts on the project such that it can be re-evaluated and potentially reinitiated at a later date. This work includes:

• completing the regulatory approval process for Kirby Phase 1
• completing the interpretation of the new seismic data and updating the resource assessment
• updating the Project's class IV cost estimate

We will continue to monitor economic, regulatory, market and technical developments which impact oil sands development and will revisit our plans for Kirby as circumstances warrant.

Resource Assessment
We have updated our resource estimate based on new data obtained from our 2008 seismic program. Our third party independent reserve engineers have provided an updated best estimate of contingent resources of approximately 500 million barrels, an increase of over 100% from the original independent best estimate assessed when we purchased the Kirby lease in 2007.

The application calls for the use of a Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage ("SAGD") process to produce 10,000 barrels per day (bbls/day) of bitumen from the first phase for approximately 25 years.