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Glossary
Provided below are definitions for some of the words that you’ll see on our site. Additional industry definitions can be found in the Centre for Energy and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers glossaries.
| Abandonment* | Converting a drilled well to a condition that can be left indefinitely without further attention and will not damage freshwater supplies, potential petroleum reservoirs or the environment. At EnCana, after all oil and gas has been produced, the well bore is secured and abandoned according to EUB requirements. |
| AEC | Alberta Energy Company Ltd, one of EnCana’s predecessor companies. |
| B | billion(s) |
| Baseline mapping | When conducting environmental assessments, EnCana uses baseline mapping as a means of assessing an entire region, including topography, infrastructure, vegetation, wildlife and fish habitat, protected areas and sacred sites, instead of looking only at a specific site. |
| bbls/d | barrel(s) of oil per day |
| bbls | barrel(s); common unit for measuring petroleum |
| bblw/d | barrels of water per day |
| Bcf | billion cubic feet (natural gas) |
| Bcfe | billion cubic feet equivalent |
| BOE | barrel of oil equivalent |
| BOE/d | barrels of oil equivalent per day |
| Btu or British thermal unit(s) | A measure of the energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. |
| C | Canadian, as in C$1 (one Canadian dollar) |
| Casing** | A series of tubular steel pipes joined by threads and couplings that lines the well bore to prevent water and rock from entering. |
| CBM or coalbed methane | A sweet natural gas found in coal seams used for home heating, natural gas-fired electrical generation and as an industrial fuel. CBM is a clean-burning fuel that requires minimal processing. |
| CEAA | Canadian Environmental Assessment Act |
| cfe | cubic feet equivalent |
| CFTC or U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission | The U.S. federal regulatory agency that regulate futures trading in all commodities. |
| CNSOPB or Canada Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board | The independent joint agency of the Governments of Canada and Nova Scotia responsible for the regulation of petroleum activities in the Nova Scotia Offshore Area. |
| CO2 or carbon dioxide** | A non-toxic gas produced from decaying materials, respiration of plant and animal life, and combustion of organic matter, including fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas produced by human activities. |
| Coke | The residual product of the condensation process in cracking. |
| Coking | A thermal cracking process to break up large molecules into smaller ones by removing the carbon, which remains as a coke residue. |
| Completions** | The process by which a well is prepared to produce oil and gas, involving such steps as running and perforating the casing. |
| Corporate Constitution | The principles by which EnCana conducts our business. The corporate constitution sets out our values and provides direction for employee behaviour |
| Cracking*** | The process of separating and transforming the various chemical components of crude oil into refined products. |
| Crack spread*** | The difference between the price of crude oil and refined petroleum products |
| d | day (e.g. bbl/d) |
| Dewatering | The removal of water from a coal seam to allow methane extraction. |
| Downstream* | The refining and marketing sector of the petroleum industry |
| DSU | Deferred share units |
| EBIT | earnings before interest and tax |
| EBITDA | earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization |
| ECA | EnCana’s stock market symbol. |
| EITF or Emerging Issues Task Force | An organization that holds public meetings in order to identify and resolve accounting issues. |
| ENGO | Environmental non-government organization |
| Environmental footprint | The company’s impact on the environment, in terms of resource use, waste generation and changes to the physical environment |
| EUB or Alberta Energy & Utilities Board | An independent, quasi-judicial agency of the Alberta government that regulates the development of the province’s energy resources. |
| Farmout** | An arrangement whereby the owner of a lease assigns some portion (or all) of the lease to another company for drilling |
| F&D | Finding and development cost |
| FERC or Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | The independent body in the United States that regulates, monitors and investigates the interstate movement of natural gas, oil and electricity. |
| Field* | The surface area above one or more underground petroleum pools sharing the same or related infrastructure. |
| Flaring** | Controlled burning of natural gas that cannot be processed for sale because of technical or economic reasons.EnCana must occasionally flare from coalbed methane (CBM) wells. CBM flaring produces much lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional deep gas well (or oil well) flaring |
| Fracing or fracturing** | The practice of pumping special fluids down the well under high pressure; fracturing causes the formation to crack open, creating passages for the reservoir fluids to flow more easily into the well bore. |
| GAAP | generally accepted accounting principles |
| GDP or General Development Plans | A tool EnCana uses to map out proposed multi-well programs to enable effective stakeholder input into program design and implementation. |
| GHG or greenhouse gases | Gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide. |
| GJ or gigajoule | 109 J; one billion joules |
| hydrocarbons | Compounds made up of only carbon and hydrogen. Fossil fuels are made up of hydrocarbons. |
| HDC or hydrocracking | The refining process that converts heavy hydrocarbons (such as oil) into lighter hydrocarbons (such as gasoline) using hydrogen and a catalyst. |
| km | kilometre(s) |
| LIS or Low Impact Seismic | Exploration activity that uses thinner, winding and discontinuous corridors as a means of impeding predator movement and access to sensitive species of wildlife. It also minimizes fragmentation of the ecosystem. |
| m | metre(s) |
| M | thousand, thousands ($M - thousands of dollars) |
| m3 | cubic metres |
| m3/d | cubic metres per day |
| M&A | mergers and acquisitions |
| Mcf | thousand cubic feet |
| Mcf/d | thousand cubic feet per day |
| Mcfe | thousand cubic feet equivalent |
| Minimal disturbance practices | The term used to describe EnCana’s operational techniques and best practices that reduce disruption to wildlife and protect native prairie grasslands. |
| MM | million, millions (e.g. $2MM) |
| MMbbls | million barrels |
| MMBtu | million British thermal units |
| MMcf | million cubic feet |
| MMcf/d | million cubic feet per day |
| MMcfe | million cubic feet equivalent |
| MMS or Minerals Management Service | A branch of the US Department of Interior that governs oil operations and manages the mineral resources in US waters on the Outer Continental Shelf |
| MW | megawatt |
| MWh | megawatt hour |
| NCG | EnCana’s Nominating and Corporate Governance committee |
| NCIB | Normal Course Issuer Bid |
| NEB or National Energy Board | The independent Canadian federal agency that regulates pipelines, energy development and trade. |
| NGL(s) or natural gas liquids* | Liquids obtained during natural gas production, including ethane, propane, butanes, and condensate. EnCana sold its NGL business in 2005. |
| NGO | Non-governmental organization |
| Nox | Nitrogen oxide |
| NYMEX | New York Mercantile Exchange |
| NYSE | New York Stock Exchange |
| OCP pipeline (Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados) | An oil pipeline in Ecuador. Until 2005, EnCana held a non-operating, minority interest in the OCP pipeline and was also a shipper on the line. |
| PCE or PanCanadian Energy Corporation | One of EnCana’s predecessor companies. |
| ppm | parts per million |
| PPoA or Power Pool of Alberta | An independent, central, open-access pool that functions as a spot market, matching demand with the lowest supply to establish an hourly pool price. |
| Reclamation | Cleaning up and restoring a wellsite to its pre-existing condition after a well ceases production. EnCana’s reclamation activities can include soil replacement, compacting and reseeding of natural prairie grasses. |
| Reserves** | Recoverable portion of resources available for use. |
| Resource play | EnCana refers to resource plays as large, known sources of oil and gas trapped beneath the earth’s surface. Resource plays can deliver profitable long-term production through the use of advanced technology and development that achieves economies of scale. A resource play can exist over a large areal expanse and/or thick vertical section of land and, in the past, could have been considered uneconomic or technically challenging to develop |
| RFP | Request for Purchase |
| Right-of-way | Land used for the construction and operation of a pipeline or other oil and gas facility. |
| ROCE | return on capital employed |
| ROI | return on investment |
| S&P | Standard & Poor’s |
| SEDAR | System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval; the system used for electronically filing most securities related information with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities. |
| SEC | U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; an independent U.S. government authority that regulates the securities industry. |
| Solution gas* | Natural gas that is entrained with crude oil in underground reservoirs. When the oil comes to the surface, the gas expands and comes out of the solution. |
| SOX or Sarbanes-Oxley | Legislation to protect shareholders from fraudulent accounting and reporting practices. |
| Sweet gas** | Raw natural gas with a relatively low concentration of sulphur compounds, such as hydrogen sulphide. |
| Tcf | trillion cubic feet |
| Tcfe | trillion cubic feet equivalent |
| TJ or terajoules | 1012 J; a trillion joules |
| THE BOW | The name of EnCana’s planned new office tower in downtown Calgary |
| TSX | Toronto Stock Exchange (formerly known as TSE) |
| Unconventional reservoirs** | In the case of natural gas from coal, natural gas from tight sands and shale gas, conventional gas found in unconventional reservoirs or reservoirs requiring special production methods or technologies; in the case of gas hydrates, conventional methane in an unconventional form occurring in a conventional reservoir |
| Upstream* | The companies that explore for, develop and produce petroleum resources. |
| Venting | The direct release of natural gas to the atmosphere. |
| * | Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers |
| ** | Centre for Energy |
| *** | Wikipedia |