OREANDA-NEWS. An independent assessment of Husky Energy's heavy oil resources in the Lloydminster region has significantly increased the overall Husky working interest of total heavy oil initially in place estimate to 17 billion barrels, of which 16 billion barrels are discovered heavy oil initially in place.

The assessment conducted by Sproule Unconventional Limited has also estimated the Husky working interest of best estimate contingent resources to be 1.9 billion barrels, of which 54 percent, or 1 billion barrels, has the potential to be recovered using thermal technology.

"Our heavy oil business has undergone a complete transformation and this assessment confirms we have more room to run," said CEO Asim Ghosh. "We have recovered approximately 950 million barrels of oil from the Lloydminster region over almost 70 years and current technologies, such as our thermal developments, are allowing us to extract even greater value from this vast resource."

The best estimate contingent resource of 1.9 billion barrels is an increase from the 107 million barrels booked at the end of 2013, as the previous assessment took into account only projects that were well advanced towards development. Heavy oil initially in place and resource estimates in this release have an effective date of December 31, 2013.

The Lloydminster block spans approximately 37,000 square kilometres, with more than two million net acres to Husky and more than 4,000 producing wells. The Company has established infrastructure and processing capacity in the region, including an upgrader, asphalt refinery, ethanol plant and an extensive pipeline gathering system.

Husky continues to build on the success of its heavy oil thermal developments, with a number of plants coming online in the next two years:
* First oil from the 10,000 bbls/day Rush Lake heavy oil thermal project is planned for the third quarter of 2015.
* The 10,000 bbls/day Edam East thermal project will be brought onstream in the third quarter of 2016.
* The 3,500 bbls/day Edam West thermal project is expected to start up in the fourth quarter of 2016.
* The 10,000 bbls/day Vawn thermal development is scheduled to begin production in the fourth quarter of 2016.