Energy Updates – Petrobakken THAI Oil Recovery Status, North Dakota Oil Update, Bellefonte reactors, Nuclear Helps Get Water to Haiti

1. Petrobank Ramps Up THAI(Toe to heel air injection -enhanced oil recovery) Operations The THAI and Capri oil processes are game changers for oilsands and heavy oil recovery, which would in turn delay peak oil by decades.

Kerrobert Project

On December 21, 2009 we re-configured the pump in KP1 to improve its pumping capacity and we are currently re-configuring KP2. Since the re-configuration, fluid production rates from KP1 have ranged from 250 to 420 barrels per day with oil cuts averaging 36% and reaching as high as 65%. We have also increased the air injection rate to 50,000 m^3/day and the produced gas rate has increased to 8,000 m^3/day.

The next expansion of our air compression capacity will be installed at the beginning of April. Due to the current pump limitations, we intend to replace them in the near future with a higher capacity design, targeting 500 barrels of oil per day (“bopd”) per well. We are also finalizing our plans for the development of the initial earned lands which would encompass up to 20 additional production wells in this portion of the pool. We plan to commence this expansion in the third quarter of this year.

Conklin (Whitesands Project)

Total oil production has reached 350 bopd and, although overall facility efficiency has been impacted by severe cold weather, we target increasing total Conklin production to 900 bopd by the end of the first quarter. We have now revised our maximum target production for the Conklin pilot to 1500 bopd and we anticipate reaching this production level in mid 2010.

May River Project (first large scale THAI project)

The May River Project is our first large-scale commercial THAI application on Petrobank’s oil sands leases west of Conklin, Alberta. The May River design builds on the experience gained from the Conklin facility, and incorporates many of the simplifications that have been successfully implemented in Kerrobert. The project will be built in phases, with initial production capacity of 10,000 bopd and an ultimate capacity of up to 100,000 bopd.

Anticipate regulatory approval in early 2010.

Dawson Project

We received Alberta Environment’s conditional approval on June 26th and ERCB’s SIRs were received at the end of November. We expect to file our response in the next two weeks. This project will incorporate our learnings from the Kerrobert project and will demonstrate the THAI technology in a mobile Peace River oil sands reservoir.

2.

Two partly built reactors at the Bellefonte site in Alabama have had their status upgraded from ‘terminated’ to ‘deferred’ by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The latest status change was described by NRC Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation director Eric Leeds as “just one step in the long list of actions TVA must complete before they resume construction at Bellefonte.” In 1988, when TVA requested NRC classify the units as deferred, units 1 and 2 were approximately 88% and 58% complete respectively. The reactors are 1213 MWe Pressure water reactors. The reinstated construction licences for Bellefonte units 1 and 2 are due to expire in 2011 and 2014 respectively. So unit 1 would need to have an extension on its construction license.

3. North Dakota Oil production (mostly Bakken oil field) for November, 2009 was 245,290 barrels of oil per day (bopd)

4. US Oil production hit 168 million barrels in October, 2009 The highest month since May of 2005. If the monthly production can be increased to 174 million barrels in one month that will be the most since May of 2003. Increasing to 185 million barrels in one month would be the most since December 1998.

Achieving net increases of 100,000 bopd means 3 million bopd per month. Add new oil fields and reduce declines in old fields. Most of the gains are coming from deep water oil.

The US ramped up about 260,000 bopd from deep water projects in the Gulf of Mexico

Another 230,000 bopd from new deep water projects are expected in 2010

North Dakota is expecting more gains in the Bakken in 2010 to as high as 500,000 bopd.

180 million barrels of oil per month is a possibility in 2010 for the USA.

Items 3 and 4 update this article from October, 2009

5. The USS Carl Vinson has arrived at Port-au-Prince as part of the American contribution to earthquake recovery in Haiti. As well as supplies, helicopters and a field hospital, the twin-reactor vessel features seawater desalination capability to produce 1.5 million litres of potable water per day