Savvy asset management to up production

Canada

Shubham Garg, chairman of Prospera Energy, talks to The Energy Year about generating returns through low-risk production increases in legacy fields and the company’s near-term asset acquisition and drilling plans.

Prospera Energy is an oil and gas company with operations focused on legacy fields in Saskatchewan and Alberta

• Legacy fields in Canada may offer overlooked production upside where prior operators have not prioritised marginal well optimisation.
• Reactivation strategies can offer lower-risk returns when reservoir conditions are favourable and existing downhole equipment remains in good shape.
• Capital discipline is central in low-price environments: operators may prioritise high-impact wells while gradually bringing smaller, reliable producers online.

How has your approach been different to that of other Canadian E&P companies?
In my field experience, I have seen numerous wells whose production could be increased but were not optimised because management did not consider a few barrels more in production to be a game-changer. Instead of becoming frustrated, I began thinking that I could come back one day, buy the wells, and extract more value from them.
We identified the Prospera land base and pools as a prime candidate for reactivations, followed by potential for horizontal drilling, multilateral wells and polymer flooding. We first put money into our Luseland property, spending about 12 months proving the wells, and what we found was a jackpot. A lot of the wells were in prime condition because there is no bottom water, very little carbon dioxide and very little hydrogen sulphide. We also found that a lot of the downhole equipment was in very good shape, so many of our workovers came at a cost significantly below what we had budgeted.
We reactivated 17 wells in 2025 and figured out which pump design to use, how long to wait between speed-ups and other details, and by mid-2025, we began injecting oil into the reservoir through casing injection. The oil picks up sand, brings it up the wellbore and cleans the reservoir, allowing more oil to flow.

What factors have influenced your decisions regarding which assets to revitalise?
The company was in a fragile position in early 2025. Oil prices were low, we had inherited debt, and there were relationships we needed to rebuild. That led to some difficult choices, and out of the approximately 150 wells on our reactivation list, we went ahead with 17.
Of those, seven were high-impact wells that could yield up to 70 bopd each, or slightly more, very cheaply – about CAD 150,000 [USD 108,583] each. The other 10 had a huge production history but would only yield a maximum of around 15 bopd. With today’s oil prices, we can focus on high-impact wells while also bringing on the reliable smaller producers as we go
The wells we began working on in 2025 are still being ramped up. One hit a new high of 38 boepd a few days ago. Others started producing at about 20 boepd, and now, as more wells come online, we can push them to 30 boepd.
Meanwhile, in Luseland, production has climbed from 54 boepd to 258 boepd, a 378% increase in slightly more than a year. Those wells need babysitting, however. You have to monitor them, take fluid shots and take wellhead cuts. If we bring too many new wells online at once, we risk losing thoroughness in our field operations and production engineering.

Why has the Canadian oil and gas sector sidestepped the reactivation opportunities you have chosen to pursue?
In Canada, the sector has gone from being led by visionary entrepreneur cowboys to being mostly made up of risk-averse safety players. Outside of established teams, the dynamics have not rewarded those who have made discoveries or increased production, and it has wiped out many companies that started operating during tough times.
Starting in 2014, big funds stopped backstopping junior companies, and banks pulled out of revolving lines of credit and reserve-based lending. Prospera Energy is different because our capital comes from global investors, in addition to Canada and the US, and we are selective about who we partner with, focusing on investors who are resilient and understand our prolific asset base. We have had success attracting investors who understand the risks and are willing to work through them.
We can pursue legacy opportunities because every one of us in our engineering team has worked in the field. We have operated wells, negotiated deals with landowners and worked with operators. We also make efforts to align our interests with those of our vendors and field operators by settling a portion of our payments in equity, bringing them in as shareholders.

What is next for Prospera Energy?
We have 41 wells planned on our acreage, and we are likely to start polymer flooding across our pools. We have also identified 12 undercapitalised assets that we can acquire in the future and immediately move towards revitalisation. I expect our operations will be biased towards Saskatchewan, where it is easier for us to build relationships and close creative deals.