Grizzly Oil Sands ULC was founded in Calgary, Alberta, Canada as a privately held company in September 2006 by Wexford Capital LP and Gulfport Energy Corp.

Grizzly began an active lease acquisition program shortly after being founded and acquired numerous prospective leases in the 2006-2008 period. Its strategy was to acquire positions in as many active and emerging play areas as possible, by observing industry activity and acquiring positions adjoining or offsetting those of large, credible oil sands operators, complemented by analysis of historical well logs and regional geology. Grizzly has been an active driller since 2007 and in 2009 identified Algar Lake as its first development project.

Grizzly’s asset base would subsequently grow to over 800,000 gross acres at nearly 100 percent working interest, 100 percent Company-operated. This is among the largest and highest-working-interest landholdings in the oil sands industry.

Grizzly’s first regulatory application, for the Algar Lake project, was filed in March 2010 and the project’s first phase received regulatory approval in December 2011. Algar Lake Phase 1 achieved first bitumen production during the second quarter of 2014.

In February 2012, Grizzly purchased the highly prospective May River property for $225 million. Grizzly conducted a 29-well resource delineation drilling program over the following winter, and filed a 12,000-barrel-per-day development regulatory application in December, 2013.