Pacific Canbriam Energy builds Montney region’s longest ever well

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — An energy company claims to have created the longest well to ever be built in the Montney region.

In a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, October 22nd, Pacific Canbriam Energy — a company focused on liquefied natural gas (LNG) production in northeastern British Columbia — announced that it had built the longest well in the formation’s history, with a total measured depth (TMD) of 8,332-metres.

Only five wells in the Montney basin have ever had a TMD above 8,000 metres up to this point, all of which started drilling in 2024 according to online oil and gas industry record-keeping platform StackDX, which has yet to add this new well to its public database. 

Among those is Pacific Canbriam’s previous longest well, listed with a TMD of 8,006 metres. 

The longest well overall in the Montney basin up to this point was built by rival company Ovintiv in the Swan Lake area, with a listed TMD of 8,208 metres.

“Drilling in the Altares formation – one of the most technically challenging areas of the Montney [basin] – our team safely executed an extreme-reach well under some of the most demanding conditions in the industry,” the post reads.

The company also says investments in larger, longer individual wells demonstrates a commitment to sustainability, allowing for the same natural gas reservoir access with fewer well sites, reduced land disturbance and required infrastructure, and less reclamation work once the well runs dry.

Pacific Canbriam owns over 224,000 acres of land in the Montney region, mostly in the Altares and Kobes areas west of Fort St. John. 

It provides LNG for use in Canada and the United States as well as supplying the Woodfibre LNG facility in Squamish with gas to export to Asian markets.