Baytex buying oil sands property in Cold Lake

Baytex is a medium size, Calgary based oil and gas producer. They have recently bought a Cold Lake oil sands property for $120 million. Although the seller is remaining private, everyone seems to think it's the evil Koch brothers selling as part of their oil sands divestiture I wrote about in June.

The property has ERCB approval for a SAGD project of up to 10,000 barrels per day on the 1,200 hectare property. They say they're going to make a pilot project next year, and if that works they'll start making a 5,000 barrel per day project to start production in 2016.

Baytex has some thermal experience at its Seal (CSS) and Kerrobert (SAGD) projects, but from what I gather most of their production is currently heavy conventional or shale oil. They also produce some gas, but understandably seem to be downplaying that fact at the moment.