MegaWest Energy Corp.�s niche is in North American heavy oil, a resource that has been left behind by other companies. This business strategy, COO R. William Thornton says, may help avert a future shortage of resources. �If you look at the world consumption right now, it�s about a thousand barrels [of] oil a second,� he says, citing the book A Thousand Barrels a Second by Peter Tertzakian. �Our ability to produce the oil we need is decreasing every year.�

COO R. William Thornton says MegaWest Energy Corp. is a “niche player” in its industry. While its competitors have focused their attention overseas, he explains, the Calgary, Alberta, Canada-based firm is taking a different route by focusing on North American heavy oil.

“We’re going back into areas that have been long forgotten by the majors,” Thornton says. In these efforts, the company acquires large blocks of land in the mid-continent that are known to contain sizeable deposits of oil.

Thornton says MegaWest Energy does not face the same challenges as other oil and gas companies. “Typical exploration has about a one-in-10 chance of finding a significant oil or gas discovery. In our case, we’re fairly confident that the oil is in the ground,” he explains. “Our challenge is to simply find a way to get it out most economically.”

Before starting MegaWest Energy this past December, Thornton gained extensive experience in the oil and gas industry. Previously, he was the general manager of petroleum engineering for Western Oil Sands Inc. and the vice president of engineering at Petrovera Resources.

He also has more than 30 years’ expertise in cyclic steam, in-situ combustion, water flood, steam drive, horizontal well, cold production and solvent technology. “I love technology,” he says. “It’s that idea of creating something and developing something that keeps me going.”

In October 2006, Thornton developed the concept for MegaWest Energy with its president and CEO, George T. Stapleton II, who has more than 30 years’ experience in energy infrastructure and project development.

The company was formed two months later, and to date, MegaWest Energy has acquired more than 70,000 acres of land holdings in Kentucky, Missouri and Texas.

In each area, “We’re creating stable working environments for a number of families,” Thornton says. “Each of the projects will have a project life in the order of 15 or 20 years.”

To extract the oil, MegaWest Energy will utilize enhanced recovery methods, such as steam drive and electrical heating technologies. The latter holds particular potential in Kentucky, Thornton says. “Electrical power is less expensive there,” he explains. “We think that could have some promise in helping us recover the oil from the property.”

To determine the right method for each project, “We’ve brought together experts who know a lot of [technologies],” Thornton says. “Rather than [be] a technology-based company, we can take our quiver full of technologies and find the right one for the specific properties.

“The quality of the projects we have and the opportunity to acquire these projects helped us attract these various players into our team,” he says. In addition to Stapleton and Thornton himself, MegaWest Energy’s team includes Vice President of Exploitation Gerry Hampshire, who holds 22 years’ experience in oil and gas production, and reservoir and exploitation engineering and operations.

Thornton also names Director Dr. Gail Bloomer, who has provided expertise in exploration and development for such companies as Gulf Oil, for being “instrumental in helping us locate these various projects in the United States.

“The business plan we have is actually quite simple,” Thornton says. “We expand the company by acquiring new leases. We then evaluate the leases by employing state-of-the-art exploration and drilling technology to quantify our resources. We then enhance the value of the resources by operating a demonstration project of the most suitable technology in each field to prove the economic recovery of the reserves. Having done this, we will then exploit the properties by implementing commercial-scale operations in each project area.”

By acquiring resources that were left behind by other companies, Thornton says MegaWest Energy may help avert a future shortage of resources. “If you look at the world consumption right now, it’s about a thousand barrels [of] oil a second,” he says, citing the book A Thousand Barrels a Second by Peter Tertzakian. “Our ability to produce the oil we need is decreasing every year.

“We’re going to be part of that solution,” he declares. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil sands and heavy oil in the United States that companies need to go back in and focus on.” �