Jericho Energy Ventures Inc. reported on Monday $27 million in pre-tax proved developed reserves by year-end 2022, up 32% from December 2021.
Its proved reserves have increased by about 26 percent in pre-tax value to $43.7 million annually, the Canadian company said in a press release.
Meanwhile, proved and probable reserves stood at $48.3 million before tax at December 31, 2022, up 37% from December 31, 2021.
Jericho said it will disclose more about its reserves position, which it said had been independently assessed by Cawley, Gillespie & Associates Inc., in its annual earnings report later this month. It is also due to release results for the fourth quarter of 2022.
The Vancouver-based company had reported a 1.2 percent decline in production of barrels of oil equivalent in the first nine months of 2022 compared to the same period a year ago, although it did not specify production volumes for the two reporting periods.
Jericho said it had collected $8.86 million in product revenue in the third quarter of last year, up 51 percent from a year ago, boosted by higher oil and gas prices.
“Our stable base of oil and gas production provides strong cash flows that fuel both strategic hydrocarbon initiatives and tomorrow’s lower carbon forms of energy,” chief executive Brian Williamson said in the latest report of the company’s performance, published on December 8.
Jericho through its 50 percent joint venture Eagle Road Oil LLC began production on Dec. 7 from the first well the company drilled since 2018. The well, Lazarus No. 1 in the state of Oklahoma in the United States, produced an average of 75 barrels per day in its first well. 45 days of operation, Jericho said in a statement on January 26.
Jericho said in his booking update on Monday that he is “looking forward to building on this success [in Lazarus] and aims to increase the company’s cash flow with the start of its 2023 drilling program, starting at the end of the second quarter.”
But the company in late 2022 announced an oil acreage sale citing “chronic underinvestment” in the industry. The transaction involved an undeveloped acreage in Oklahoma from the STACK JV, in which Jericho had a 26.5 percent interest.
“Despite a prolonged low oil price environment since our initial entry into the STACK JV, we are now beginning to see the cascading effects of chronic underinvestment in our industry with higher oil and gas prices,” he said Williamson in the November 15 divestment announcement.
However, he added: “This has reinvigorated clearing operator activity around our STACK position, providing a potential increase in value to our remaining surface position. With this divestment to a prime operator level, we increase the probability that the new compensated drilling activity is almost contiguous to the JEVs [Jericho Energy Ventures] entire STACK position”.
Jericho’s principal operation includes the development and production of oil and natural gas in the US. But he noted in a Canadian securities filing on Nov. 23: “In 2021, the company began expanding its energy portfolio to advance the global low-carbon energy transition with investments in hydrogen technologies and new energy systems”.
In one of its latest hydrogen projects, it said last month that its subsidiary H2U Technologies has signed an agreement with Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. to explore new catalysts for electrolyzers used to make “green” hydrogen.
“Tokyo Gas plans to use the hydrogen produced from electrolysis directly or to make electronic methane,” the partners jointly announced on March 10.
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