Well permitting across Canada declined 4.67 per cent in 2013 to 15,866 licences, down from 16,644 well authorizations in 2012 and 19,813 the prior year.
B.C. was the only province to see a year-over-year increase in well authorizations. The province assigned 962 new licences last year versus 757 in 2012 (up about 27%).
In Alberta, operators licensed 10,160 wells in 2013 compared to 10,884 wells the prior year (off 6.65%), while Saskatchewan operators had 4,162 permits issued versus 4,262 in 2012.
Manitoba saw its licence count decline to 537 wells in 2013 from 720 the previous year.
Industry licensed 9,528 horizontal wells last year (excluding oil sands evaluation and experimental wells), up about 4.2% from 9,148 licences granted in 2012. Directional licences totalled 2,583, off from 2,717 in 2012.
In Western Canada, the 2013 licence count included 10,174 permits to drill for oil or bitumen, off from 10,688 last year.
In Alberta, 5,669 oil and bitumen wells were permitted compared to 6,020 in 2012, while 3,888 oil wells were authorized in Saskatchewan, about even with 3,899 the prior year.
Gas well permitting (gas and CBM) during 2013 in the three most western provinces increased to 2,263 from 1,862 the prior year. That was the first increase in gas licensing in four years. In 2004 and 2005, over 20,000 gas wells were licensed per year.
Industry licensed 2,189 oilsands evaluation wells in 2013, off 12.75 per cent from 2,509 licences in 2012.
The top licensee of new wells in 2013, excluding experimental wells, was Canadian Natural Resources Limited (1,399 permits). It was the only operator to license more than a thousand wells.
Other top licensees included: Husky Energy Inc. (982), Crescent Point Energy Corp. (624), Cenovus Energy Inc. (581) and Royal Dutch Shell plc (495).
In December, industry licensed 2,017 new wells, off 12.7 per cent from 2,311 well authorizations in December 2012.
