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Enerplus Corp. Chief Executive Officer Ian Dundas estimates that 10 years ago, his company allocated 90 per cent of its capital spending to properties in Canada and 10 per cent to its U.S. holdings. Those percentages have been reversed, he said in an interview.

Much of the shift came because the Calgary-based oil and gas producer changed its strategy from being a conventional producer to focusing on prolific shale plays like the Bakken and Marcellus. However, Canada’s regulatory environment only helped accelerate the shift.

“You’ve got to have the right regulatory momentum,” Dundas said. “The momentum just kept building for the U.S., and Canada just kept getting more complicated and more expensive.”

In April, PSAC cut its forecast for the number of wells drilled this year in Canada by 500 to 7,400 amid a wider-than-normal discount for Canadian crude. In a survey this year, the trade group found that 9 per cent of its members sought to expand into the U.S. and 14 per cent wanted to leave Canada, a response that Whalen called “alarming.”

“I do see potential for growth in the U.S.,” Kevin Neveu, CEO of Calgary-based Precision Drilling Corp., said in a May conference call. “It’s a little hard to be quite as bullish on Canada” where the opportunity to grow market share is “quite limited.”

Saskatchewan’s Bakken geology doesn’t offer the scale of North Dakota’s, Mark Oberstoetter, lead analyst for Canadian upstream research at Wood Mackenzie, said by phone. The reserves that can be exploited at US$60 crude are about one-twentieth as large as in North Dakota. Wells are shallower, smaller and cheaper, he said.

Producers have the option to connect to rail in both regions but counterparts in North Dakota are enjoying a recent improvement in pricing received on the back of the Dakota Access Pipeline which started operation last year, Oberstoetter said.

As Canadian oil prices have fallen, the population of North Portal has dropped from about 143 to 112 after oil prices collapsed, Lindsay Davis, village administrator, said by phone. “There is a lot more property for sale. We have some empty homes.”

“People moved on, moved away,” she said.

Bloomberg.com