EnCana celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Weyburn Field's Discovery Well with the announcement of a major donation, and news of a production high set in the Weyburn Business Unit.

Company officials from Calgary joined the anniversary luncheon and celebration with employees at Goodwater Hall on Friday, where the announcements were made prior to handing out specially-made blankets to employees. The blankets depict the discovery well pumpjack in its original location on the Dorsch family land.

The pumpjack has since been donated and moved to a location in the Tatagwa Parkway in Weyburn. A film crew hired by EnCana was also on hand to record the celebration for the company.

In her remarks to the gathering, Judy Fairburn, vice-president of the Weyburn Business Unit, said EnCana will be making a $50,000 donation towards the cost of renovating the Red Wings dressing room at the Colosseum. The official presentation of the funds will be made early in the spring of 2005.

The employees were also told by Jeff Wojahn, president of the Canadian Plains Region for EnCana, that the Weyburn field hit a 30-year production high, a "testimony to the hard work of everybody in the team."

He said this was part of the reason EnCana as a corporation decided to refocus their efforts on the North American market.

Darcy Cretin, operations superintendent for the Weyburn Business Unit, later explained that production had reached 25,000 barrels a day, a level the company has not seen from the Weyburn Field since 1974, and due mainly to the injection of carbon dioxide into the field. He added some of the newly-drilled wells from this year are coming onstream, and promise to bump up that production level even higher. In starting off the anniversary celebration, Cretin told the group, "In the life of an oilfield 50 years is a significant length of time. Some fields are older than Weyburn's, such as Leduc and Turner Valley (in Alberta), but we rank up there with age. It's pretty neat to be here to hit a milestone like this."

In his remarks, Wojahn said, "When we look back and take a look at the history of where we've done well, it's been in places like Weyburn."

With the development of the CO2 miscible flood technology in the Weyburn field, "a tremendous opportunity has been created," he said, pointing to the new production high as proof of the how well the new technology works. Fairburn added the success of the CO2 project can also be seen with the many international visitors who come to see the technology in practical use.