Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Obsidian Energy's corporate presentation in association with our annual and special meeting. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Stephen Loukas, Interim President and CEO. Please go ahead.
This is Stephen Loukas, Interim President and CEO of Obsidian Energy, and I would like to welcome you to our corporate presentation in connection with our annual and special meeting that was held earlier today. Turning to page two, I will point you to our advisories along with our disclaimers in the back of the presentation. Turning to page three, I'd like to focus on our high-level investment highlights. Our production is low decline in nature with an oil-weighted asset base with significant underlying reserves and peer-leading well results. We are the largest acreage holder in the Cardium, with significant positions in both the Willesden Green and Pembina area.
We have a very high-quality cold flow and low decline, heavy oil Bluesky resource within Peace River, and we have significant upside within the Clearwater play, and you should anticipate that we'll have more to say as we work our way towards the end of the year in regards to the Clearwater. In regards to infrastructure, we control our strategic infrastructure, and that allows us to grow production with minimal incremental infrastructure spend. In the way of optionality, we are flexible and responsive to commodity price changes, and we have additional upside via waterflood management and EOR projects. For example, we can commit incremental capital to waterfloods to further mitigate declines and capture incremental reserves.
On the ESG front, we have a strong commitment to ESG practices, including minimizing environmental impacts, and we'll have a lot more to say on this subject in subsequent slides within this presentation. Turning to page four, just in the way of a corporate overview, we have world-class assets and a very experienced team headquartered in Calgary, Alberta. Our estimated production profile for 2022 is approximately 32,000 BOE a day. Our production mix is approximately 66% oil and liquids. At year-end 2021, we had 148 million BOE of 2P reserves, which equates to a 2P RLI index of approximately 13 years. At year-end 2021, we had a PDP decline rate of approximately 21% and significant tax pools of approximately CAD 2.5 billion. Total shares outstanding approximately 82 million.
We have a market cap over CAD 1 billion with net debt at March 31 of approximately CAD 449 million, equating to an aggregate enterprise value of approximately CAD 1.5 billion. Turning to page five, which helps outline our strategy. We focus on driving per share growth via incremental asset development and debt reduction while generating excess free cash flow and allowing us to act on growth opportunities at higher commodity prices, such as we've announced this morning with the board's decision to increase our capital budget to capture what we deem to be very attractive wellhead economics. We have the ability to increase scale and manage cost structure through production additions.
To contextualize what that means is we're currently very much in an inflationary environment where our absolute operating costs are going up, but we're more than mitigating that by growing production and spreading those costs across a broader production profile. Our forecasted targeted total debt is approximately CAD 225 million. That equates to approximately 1x debt to FFO at $50 WTI. As we approach those thresholds, we will consider both returns of capital via stock buybacks as well as dividends. With that, I'll turn it over to Peter D. Scott to walk you through some slides on the financials within the financial section.
Thanks, Steve. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the call. My name is Peter D. Scott. I'm the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the company. I'm pleased to present today our updated 2022 guidance, as well as a preliminary look at our 2023 forecast. We've been steadily building our development plan really since late 2020 when prices began to recover from the depths of COVID pricing impacts. Obviously, as we've seen prices continue to be strong where we are today, and we have the ability to take advantage of it with our team and the assets that we have, as Steve outlined. We're able to continue to pay down debt in this environment and meet our debt targets also, as Steve outlined.
We think this is a very good environment to be increasing our capital spending and meeting all our targets. On the slide, we're showing a progression from what we did in 2021, and then the plan we're looking to execute in 2022, and the early look at 2023. Focusing in on the capital lines, for 2022, we are looking to increase capital to about CAD 300 million, compared to 2021. That's a little over double that amount. Steve mentioned inflation. We have included a 15% inflation bump in here from the first half of the year, given what's happening out there in the environment.
Despite with that increase in capital, we're also growing our production 30% over 2021 levels. In 2023, our preliminary look at capital is actually a little lower at about CAD 265 million. Production really benefits from the 2022 plus 2023 program and is up 17% compared to what 2022 would be and 50% over the 2021 level. A strong production growth. How does that translate into financial results? Well, our funds flow from operations or FFO at $105 WTI, which is lower than where it is today, would be up to CAD 520 million, which is really up CAD 300 million over 2021, more than doubling that level.
We're generating free cash flow of CAD 200 million, which would be used to bring down our debt levels to about CAD 200 million or a little less, or 0.4 times net debt to funds flow from operations, which is down considerably from the 1.9x at the end of 2021. In 2023, that continues. Funds flow from operations rises to CAD 650 million, and that's at $95 WTI generating even stronger free cash flow of CAD 375 million, which would actually put us into a net cash position on our balance sheet, and obviously giving us options on what to do with our investment strategies as well as return of capital initiatives.
Our program provides strong growth in this high commodity price environment, which we're taking advantage of, as well as delivering a very strong balance sheet. Next slide, please. With the commodity price environment out there, obviously there is a lot of talk about taxes and tax pools and how companies can react to that. Fortunately, we're in a very favorable tax position. We have about CAD 2.6 billion of pools. About CAD 2.2 billion of those pools are immediately deductible, meaning they're not subject to scheduled timing on how you can use them. At $100 WTI, we wouldn't see ourselves being taxable for at least six years. We think the value of the tax pools is significant in this environment, maybe not recognized in our stock.
One way to value them is to look at how fast you could use them. On the top left chart, it shows the cadence of using those pools anywhere from CAD 200 million a year to CAD 500 million per year. If you think of free cash flow that I just went through as a good proxy for how they get used, remember, in 2022, free cash flow is about CAD 200 million, 2023 it'd be CAD 375 million. So that would be a proxy for how those pools could be used. You can see how it translates into a per share value of about CAD 4.30 per share, up to almost CAD 5.60 per share in the case if you were to use more pools in any given year on a constant basis.
I think, just illustrates that there's significant value in those pools that probably isn't recognized in the stock to date. The bottom, left chart just really shows if you could use the maximum pool deductions, all at once, as it could be scheduled out. Again, that obviously translates to a higher share price of CAD 5.85-CAD 6.76 in terms of value to the shares. All in all, just to say, I think the tax pool is a very strong asset for us and will benefit as well as we look to deploy that free cash flow for other uses. Next slide, please. Looking at 2022, we think it's a year we really begin to differentiate ourselves.
As I mentioned earlier, the team's really been building our program since late 2022, and that's allowed us to secure the services and equipment to execute on our program. Bear in mind, we do retain flexibility and should commodity prices fall unexpectedly or to levels that don't really justify making that investment, we do have the ability to toggle and bring down capital spending. I won't steal all of Jay's thunder. He'll go through our program in more detail in a few minutes here. Suffice it to say, we will continue to do development in all our areas. Cardium is obviously a fundamental piece for us with that large inventory and it delivering excellent returns.
Peace River is now a revitalized core area for us, post the acquisition of our partner's interest back late in 2021, and as we're all hearing, has some tremendous Clearwater upside as that play is emerging on our acreage. As we announced a little earlier this year, we even have a small program at our Viking play in southeast Alberta to ensure the efficiency of those operations of that asset, and certainly is very economic at these prices. On the financial side, first and foremost, we're looking to complete the refinancing project by mid next month. Obviously the plans that we've outlined here are predicated on us completing that financing project, which we expect to do.
We're looking to put in place, as we've mentioned before, a senior subordinated structure with a senior structure providing the ongoing liquidity that we may need, and the subordinated structure providing term on, kind of long-term debt targets. With the free cash flow generation, as we've mentioned, we continue to pursue reducing our debt. Our targets again, I think as Steve outlined, we wanna be below 1x debt to funds flow from operations and an absolute debt target of CAD 225 million or less. As Steve mentioned, that would be about 1x at $50 WTI.
As I showed you, our plan does build cash into 2023, and as we move through getting closer to that point, we'll be looking at our investment plans, including an M&A and as well as return on capital options. Stay tuned. There'll be more to come on that as we progress through the year. With that, I will turn it over to Jay.
Thanks so much, Peter. My name is Jay McGilvary. I'm the Senior Director of Development here at Obsidian Energy. I've been pleased to take part in our development activity since 2017, and happy to see us grow into the pace and scale that we're currently employing today. When I last spoke to everyone in January, we had presented a 2022 budget with roughly 29 wells that was roughly first half weighted, but still has the most activity in the second half of the year. As we stand today, I'm pleased to say that we've already accomplished 28 of those wells.
We just spudded our sixth Viking well in our Esther field, and we plan to have two more of those complete prior to the end of the first half, and we will have accomplished more in the first half of the year than we promised in January. Including carryover wells from 2021, we will bring 27 wells on production this year in the first half alone, and of the additional wells, we'll drill 38 more in the second half of the year. Our expanded development program for the second half is really just a continuation of what we've already been successfully doing since we ramped up our pace and scale in October of last year.
Though the impact of 2022 A&D will be minimized, at least 12 of the wells that we are drilling in the second half this year will be forecasted to come on in 2023. We recognize that we're in a unique opportunity right now to utilize both our expertise, our readiness, and our execution to make sure that we can develop into commodity price with really robust economic returns, and that's what we're set up to do. When we speak of 68 wells, I think it also implores us to speak about how far we've come in the last little while. For comparison, our 2020 program was only 10 wells. Our Q4 production was 23,644 BOE a day.
Today, on almost entirely organic growth, except for only the acquisition of our 45% working interest in Peace River, we are forecasting 32,000 BOE per day this year, and heading into 2023 with momentum between 37,000 and 38,000 BOE per day. We are running. That is a testament to the value of our portfolio, our ability to be ready, and our ability to execute and retain the services that we need into the half of this year. Speaking specifically to what we're gonna do in the second half of this year, we are now realizing value across our entire portfolio.
Historically, where you've seen this company come from the last couple of years, where we've been singular in our focus, drilling primarily within the Cardium, we are now seeing tremendous value both on our ability to execute, but also, the improvement in commodity price across all regions of our portfolio. That, and in combination with the acquisition of the 45% working interest in Peace River, has seen us really grow into a robust, company with an ability to use what I like to call macro levers within our portfolio. Our macro levers are our ability to pivot to heavy oil or to gas, or into more oil-weighted, high initial rate, lower, steeper decline wells or shallower decline by focusing on water flood or heavy oil. All these options and levers are readily available to us.
We can then utilize macro-micro levers within our individual assets, where if we wanna focus on GOR or working into new areas and expanding our infrastructure, those are available to us, or we can focus more robustly on just infill drilling and following up on some of the successful results we've had in the first half of this year, utilizing existing pads that are already built and shortening our timeline for execution. Most importantly, our half two program is what I define as realistic and achievable. I think in our industry right now, you're gonna have a lot of companies speaking about what they could do with the excess cash they have. For us, this is a question of what we can do. These are resources that we already have in place.
In February of this year, there were 229 rigs working roughly in our industry. Resources right now in Alberta are a zero-sum game. If you wanna grow, you have to cannibalize from someone else. We already have those resources in place. I also talk about realism in terms of how we're viewing commodity prices, but also the inflationary pressures that we're feeling as an industry as a whole. You know, Peter spoke to it earlier, but we built in 15% inflationary pressure for the second half of this year, over and above what we saw for first half actuals. Now, that might seem aggressive, and we're obviously doing everything we can to improve efficiency and mitigate those costs, but it warrants us to be realistic about where those cost pressures are inflating. They're coming to us in the form of commodities primarily.
Steel that goes into wells, cement that goes into wells, and the actual physical properties like sand that we need to put into our completions are where we're feeling those greatest pinches. Those are a supply issue as demand across the industry continues to increase. We are addressing that by being realistic with what we can accomplish, pouring a capital budget that is achievable, but also keeps our momentum into robust growth in 2023, making us a stronger company while still making significant debt repayments and changing the overall financial position of the company. With that, I'll happily move on to the next slide, talking about some of our results on our overall Cardium program. This is a slide that the Cardium team is immensely proud of. The first thing I always highlight on this slide is the overall population count.
Obsidian has drilled 58 wells in the Cardium since 2018, nearly double any competitor in the Willesden Green asset. This is not a fluke. This is something we've done achievable and repeatable throughout that asset. This is a testament to execution, decision-making, capital commitment, but also the quality of the reservoir in which we import these resources. I also highlight not just the EUR and the fact that we're outpacing individuals at 36 months, but the decisions that go into the front end of that curve. You notice that we start behind. This is a choice that we make in terms of being capitally prudent and value-seeking behavior. We don't overcapitalize our completions. We focus on completions that will have the longest return impact to the organization. That means a lower tonnage, higher spacing typically than some of our peers.
You can see by the time you pivot over month six and seven, that has pivoted in our favor, and we're realizing value at a rate greater than some of our competitors. This is a choice we've done repeatedly. It serves us well, and we plan to continue it into our 2022 program as we move forward. With that, moving on to our individual assets. These are slides that we've spoken about quite a bit historically, but there's a big change now. We've included the economics on each of these slides, something that has not been in our deck over the last couple of months. The reason being is that we wanna be really fiscally prudent and honest about what we think DC&T costs will be going forward.
You notice that we put those inflated costs, as we've spoken to, in the year. They are higher than we've seen previously, but they're immensely tied to what we think we can achieve, in the second half of this year. More importantly, taking those inflated capital costs into the actual well economics, you see that we are still proving an incredibly robust economic thesis across all of our assets. Each asset gets there in a slightly different manner. You can see IRRs well north of 100% generally across our entire portfolio. What I also would highlight is the payout metrics. Payout, to me, is a proxy for how you view risk.
If you're bullish on commodity prices in the short term, you'll note that the payouts on these wells and the investment we're making in the second half of this year is incredibly quick. The cash flow will be back in our bank account before you know it, allowing us to further improve our financial position and obviously allowing us to employ that capital elsewhere in the future. Regardless of how you view the long-term view and the total IRR of those projects, they are economically robust and short-term payouts that will be relatively low risk in the short term as we move forward. Looking at Willesden Green specifically, you see some of those micro levers that I spoke about earlier.
First of all, you see our traditional approach to some of the oil wells we drilled, but you also note at the bottom a Cardium gas well that we plan to drill in the second half of this year. As we march northward on Willesden Green, we have the ability to increase our gas oil ratio on the wells that we drill. three to three and eight to 36, and then up into 14 to 28, where by the definition, we become a gas area, allow us to capture some of the improvement in overall gas commodity prices within a localized portion of our asset. We don't have to pivot into a whole new area of development. We can do that on a localized basis within our existing infrastructure.
That's the advantage of having several strong assets in our portfolio as opposed to being a single player on Anus. We can do the micro, but we can also do the macro at the same time. As we move into Willesden Green, East Crimson, that was the focus of our first half program. I'll highlight as you look at the results in there, is that what we delivered was repeatable and achievable. The rates are relatively uniform, and I'm pleased to say, as we sit today, we're bringing three additional wells on this week.
You say just on production, we're getting updates as of this morning that those wells are up and running, and it'll mark the end of the wells that we plan to bring on in the first half of this year as we await the completions on our Viking program in July. In the second half of this year, obviously we'll drill the South eight-34 pad, continuing the trend that we've seen on eight-10 and eight-three. Very stable wells that meet our expectations, but we've also layered in a Mannville well. We drilled a Mannville well in 2021. It was incredibly successful off the south end of that pad, and we're going back to an existing infrastructure to capitalize on gas prices below the Cardium play in that area. On to Pembina.
Pembina has been a real pleasure in the last year here. One of the things I'd like to highlight on this map is the eight to 27 pad, which in one of our last press releases we highlighted was doing over 1,000 BOE a day and showing IPs on here of 238 BOE per day, on average per well, is only eight miles from the overall discovery of the Pembina field. This is a long life asset with tons of opportunity that we continue to exploit.
The ability to drill a three-well pad that can still produce at these rates within an existing mature water flood is a testament to the technical ability and execution that the team put together, but also the effectiveness of the reservoir models that we do and our ability to produce into a field with existing infrastructure and strong operations. This has been a tremendous success as we've returned to Pembina in the recent year. It's worked extremely well for us, and we plan to continue this momentum as an asset that will see activity going forward. At the bottom, in the very small bullet point, you note two Devonian wells.
We drilled one Devonian well in the first half of the year, and though we're being slightly cagey on what we're saying about it, that's because we're still finding ways to increase our overall inventory in this play. We've seen some really successful results. Understandably, vertical wells drilled in a conventional reservoir are the highest economic return you can expect in our basin today. The requirement not to use fracture completions to reduce overall costs and our ability to drill vertically off existing pads makes for incredibly robust economics, and we are assertively seeking ways to continue to grow that inventory and make that a continual part of our development in a reasonable level. Finally, on to Peace River, slide 14.
Our return to Peace River has been incredibly successful, and you'll see that in the next slide, on slide 15. We plan to employ a rig working up there for the better part of the year, starting in early July, and then layer in a second rig in the second half of the year. As Steve mentioned, we're leaning more heavily into the Clearwater, but we've had incredible success in the Bluesky as well, with really strong economic return and a manufactured approach to development within existing fields. As noted, as you see below, we have increased our overall footprint in the area with 23 sections for CAD 13.7 million early this year.
We identified 28 potential Bluesky locations incremental to the significant land base we already have, and we plan to begin exploiting those as early as 2023 or late this year, with opportunities to go in, and develop on some of these new land bases and further expand our footprint. As we move on to slide 15 to speak specifically about some of those results we've seen in the Bluesky, I'd like to note two things on here. One, obviously, is six of 31 and the decline associated with the production that we're seeing on there. six of 31 was a three-well pad drilled in a gap in the Harmon Valley South field. It had not been developed at that point, and we went in and drilled straightforward infill wells from a new pad.
In March of this year, that pad was producing about 1,000 BOE a day. As of last week, it's producing 951 BOE a day. When we talk about our ability to pick assets based on controlling decline, that is a testament to the fact that this heavy oil resource is both abundant, economic, but also shallower decline than we see in the fracture stimulation completions of the Cardium. You're able to develop a balance in the overall portfolio by investing in both of these assets at the same time. The other pad that's exciting on here is 12 to 25. This is the exact opposite. When you look at the nine to 35 well off there, that is a well that was drilled deeper than the existing wells.
We drilled underneath an underperforming pad, a well that was drilled in high-quality conventional reservoir but did not meet the expectations on its original production. We went back in and drilled four meters deeper within the existing field. That well, demarcated by the gray line at the top of the graph, has been absolutely lights out in terms of economics. Not only do you not have to build an additional pad, but you're able to produce a well at the highest rate we've seen in the field in quite some time, utilizing only nine legs within the existing heart of the field. The ability to repeat this is something that we're evaluating very carefully because it opens up additional opportunities throughout the entire field. Finally, on to Clearwater.
Steve mentioned it, as I said earlier, that Clearwater is becoming an even bigger part of how we identify ourselves as a company and where we're moving forward into 2023. We have two wells currently planned for the second half of this year, 1.5 net, that we plan to drill to both further delineate on the shoulders of the additional work that we've done in the field and also to explore where or offset where we've seen strong competitor results in the field. Spoke to the fact that we had picked up additional land at the start of this year, and obviously, we're very excited about it. I'd be remiss if we didn't pick up the fact that we picked up 37 additional sections in 2021 as well for only CAD 800,000.
Not to sound like a hipster, but we were picking up land in this area before it was cool. With that in mind, obviously, Peavine, the results that Baytex has displayed up there have been the industry-leading in the Clearwater. The desire to follow up both in our Dawson assets down in the south of Peace River and across in the Seal will be a focus point in terms of how we develop going forward. We're positioning ourselves by restocking our entire technical team. We've added two additional geologists and two additional reservoir engineers with experience in the field and Clearwater experience, and we're excited to be off and running again there with the ability to grow into the future. Finally, on the Viking side.
Our decision to move and drill eight Viking wells is a testament to how nimble we are as an organization. I view it as countercyclical or counterseasonal. When the rest of the industry is laying down rigs due to breakup, we are able to continue our operations drilling eight wells that were ready to go. It's also a testament to the fact that the economics of these plays have changed. Viking is one of our more heavily gas-weighted plays we have in the portfolio. As you can see from the economics down on the page, the overall improvement in gas price has been a huge factor in terms of why you would wanna come back into the Viking and develop it. It is now competitive both with Cardium and our heavy oil assets, and something that we are able to do repeatedly year over year on this countercyclical basis.
Not only has the commodity price improved, but I'll also highlight the fact that with the inflationary pressures that we're seeing in the second half, we had a very unique opportunity to capture lower capital costs by drilling at this point, as opposed to waiting longer where we're seeing inflationary pressures, come into play. We were able to window a rig from a major, get in there, execute, and return, all in a very short period of time and in very quick, and rapid execution. As I said, it's repeatable into 2023, and we plan to see with economics like this something that's part of our portfolio from here going forward. With that, I'll pass it over to Cliff, who's gonna start walking us through some of our ESG initiatives. Thank you very much for your time.
Thanks, Jay. My name is Cliff Swadling. I'm the Vice President of Operations here at Obsidian Energy. I've been here since about 2017, and I'm gonna present the ESG highlights from that period. Just wanted to acknowledge that, you know, this ESG is something that comes along with many small projects and those lead to big initiatives. It's given us the opportunity to really interact collaboratively with our people internally, our vendor contractors, First Nations, local governments, and benefit the province of Alberta. Some of the key notes broken by environmental, social, and governance are a 40% reduction in GHG emissions between 2018 and 2021.
Similarly, we've seen a 40% reduction in the injected fresh water usage over the last three years and a 75% reduction in pipeline failures per 1,000 Km between 2017 and 2021. Right now, measured against total licensed pipelines, we are running about half of industry average with our pipeline failures. We're very proud of that accomplishment. On the social side, we've had over 10,500 worker safety initiatives just in 2021. That includes hazard IDs, corrective actions, management observations, et cetera, et cetera. Our team is very involved in treating worker safety with the highest priority, and we're very pleased with these results. 26% of our employees are female, with a third in leadership positions.
Over the period of five years right before us, we have contributed over CAD 1.8 billion economically. 86% of our board members are independent, and we have 6.5% insider ownership. What I'd like to do is focus on the GHG emission side of it to start with on slide 19. As mentioned, it's about a 40% reduction since 2018, and this is a multi-pronged approach. GHG emissions tend to get broken into four categories. There's flared, fugitive, combustion, and vented emissions. Our company has seen an 88% reduction in flaring since 2018, primarily through a CAD 75 million investment in the Peace River area infrastructure, which has set us up really well for development right now when the commodity prices are high and we've got a large inventory of land to access.
That has taken 95% of what was previously flared and vented out of the air and put into the grid where we can sell it and make money off of it. A two-fold benefit from that project. The fugitive side, we've taken down 80% since 2018, and I've got some exciting new technology to show you coming up here. Combustion emissions are benefiting from plant consolidation and our focus going into next year and starting actually in the second half of this year will be to tackle some of the remaining vented emissions that are on our portfolio. If we go to slide 20, I'm actually really excited about this particular technology.
Back in 2019, as part of our FEMP, we went out and purchased a forward-looking infrared camera and retrained one of our own operators to become an emissions technician. His job was to go out, look at the facilities, and identify any venting sources using this camera, after which they would get repaired and taken offline. Fugitives, just for everybody's benefit, are emissions of methane that escape process equipment during normal operations, say a controller door that might be open or a tubing leak or something like that. That worked pretty well for us. We were able to bring our emissions down considerably.
This year, and starting actually in the second half of last year, we entered into a research partnership with the University of Calgary and acquired a technology called PoMELO, which stands for Portable Methane Leak Observatory, which is a rooftop vehicle-mounted system that detects leaks immediately when you drive onto and around the location and notifies the technician, who can then take the camera and pinpoint it. It's improved our cycle time and has allowed us to initiate repairs basically immediately while we're on site. This is industry-leading, and we believe it's going to be something that makes us one of the lowest fugitive emissions companies in industry as we go forward. Let's go to slide 21. Our water intensity and usage. As mentioned, our injected fresh water use is down 40%, our intensity similarly.
On the frack side, we're down 20% per well. Our goals with this are to maintain the low rate of fresh water use that we have achieved and continue to look for ways to reduce it even further, as we strive to conserve this valuable resource. Going forward to slide 22. Asset retirement is part of our strategy of responsible full-cycle development. We started in 2018 by entering into the AER's Area-Based Closure program. We were one of the founding participants in that.
2019 was our first real, large-scale program where we kinda took an area of the company and said, "We're gonna abandon this full scale." Over 2020 and 2021, we continued to participate in that program, and we transitioned seamlessly into the Liability Management Framework program through Directive 088 that came out in the beginning of this year. Along the way, we were also able to take advantage of participation in the Alberta Site Rehabilitation Program with up to CAD 34 million in gross ASRP grants and allocations that we expect to be used up by the year-end here. We've got about CAD 30 million of that used up to date, and we're just cleaning up the last bit in the second half.
What I wanted to really highlight was the statistics and show what we've accomplished over that period of time. We've abandoned 1,033 wells. We've discontinued and abandoned 2,650 kilometers of pipeline. 60 facilities were fully abandoned, and we've received 287 reclamation certificates. All of this has resulted in a CAD 90 million reduction in our decommissioning liability, and approximately 97% of our inactive legacy wellbores have been fully abandoned so far. We're incredibly pleased with our asset retirement obligation achievements. We have essentially concentrated any of the inactive ARO into our core operating areas where it's much easier to address, and we'll continue to follow along with the Liability Management Framework, either meeting or exceeding regulatory obligations over time and just making this a normal part of our business.
Lastly, on my side with slide 23, just to showcase how we've invested in Alberta communities. We're really proud of this, having donated over CAD 620,000 to local charities since 2017. Most of these recipients are chosen based on employee recommendations. It's very local. It's very collaborative with the areas that we tend to work in. There's a whole bunch of examples in the fine print below, but some of the key ones are the Drayton Valley and District Food Bank. We've donated to the Peace River, Oyen, and Rocky Food Banks as well. Rocky Mountain House Volunteer Search and Rescue, Clearwater Boys and Girls Club. I'd like to mention 4-H. That's one we recently bought a couple of the calves from.
The picture on the left is one of the ones I'm most proud of where we were one of the first donators to the anchor donators to the Drayton Valley Aquatic Center. I get a chance to drive up there quite often in my role, and it's nice to see that facility coming together and getting ready to support the community, which includes a lot of our employees and their families. With that, I will pass it back to Peter for discussion on share-based compensation.
Great. Thanks, Cliff. Share-based compensation or SBC has obviously been a topic of conversation, and we certainly understand that. We wanted to provide some more info around it and maybe some of the workings of how this ends up on our books. The table we provide various elements of what makes up the SBC or the share-based compensation. It's the deferred share units, the performance share units, and non-treasury incentive award units. What we're showing on the table is at a balance sheet date, so those are cumulative numbers showing the numbers outstanding as well as the liability associated with that. To be clear, and you'll hear me repeat this probably several times, that's not a cash payment that's been made. That's a liability that's been put there.
Because a number of our plans here require a cash settlement, we have to account for them on a basis of the total liability at the time of the balance sheet date. Really, that liability is based on what our share price is at the time of the balance sheet date. It's what we call a mark-to-market, kinda like what you have to do on the hedging side. If our stock goes up, our share-based compensation goes up by the fact that the stock went up during that period. That change also goes through our funds flow from operations, even though it hasn't been cash that's paid out. Obviously, if the stock goes down, the opposite does happen.
In terms of looking at this table, just wanted to point out a couple of things. There's two things that really affect the value of the share-based compensation. One is the stock prices I just talked about, and the other is obviously the number of awards that are outstanding. To illustrate the stock price, if we look at the DSU numbers in the table on the left-hand side, and then we look at the number at December 31, 2020, there was a little over 2 million DSUs outstanding with a valuation of CAD 1.9 million. If you look over onto the right-hand side, that was the stock price of CAD 0.87 a share.
If we fast-forward to March 31, 2022, there's actually a little less DSUs outstanding, but roughly still about 2 million. That liability is now CAD 22.8 million. The reason for that is you see over on the right-hand side, the stock price has gone from CAD 0.87 a share up over CAD 10, which we've all benefited from, to CAD 11.08 a share. The change in that liability is driven by what's happened with the stock price. Looking at the second factor, the number of awards outstanding, again, looking at the DSUs, if we look at what happened in 2020. At December 31, 2019, the end of the year, there was 847,000 outstanding.
That did increase by about 1.2 million units to a little over 2 million, as I mentioned, at the end of December 2020. What happened in the year of 2020? Obviously a very interesting year. The commodity price was down in the depths. Going through COVID, company was conserving cash, making sure that we survived for another day. The directors elected to take their fee compensation not in cash, but in DSUs instead. Cumulatively, that would have been less than CAD 1 million. But given where the stock price was, and it's based, and those awards are based on what the stock price is, that resulted in the DSUs going up to about 2 million DSUs outstanding.
As a result of that, you could see that liability was only CAD 2 million. The share price at that time was well under a dollar, as we all remember. Suffice it to say, that's how our stock-based compensation works. Again, accounting rules are causing us to mark to market this every time at a balance sheet date to give you a sense of how that changes over time. Each dollar change in the share price is equivalent to about CAD 3.5 million change in that liability. Again, that's not paid out in cash. Cash isn't paid out till after vesting's occurred. In the case of DSUs, that doesn't happen until a director leaves the board. That liability is retained on our books in that instance.
Hopefully that gives you a little bit more flavor of how our share-based compensation works and why it's recorded as it is in our books. We'll continue to provide information on this as we go forward. Next slide, please. Just wanted to look a little bit at our reserves and how they underpin the value of the company and the share price that we're seeing today. You know, as we illustrated on the last slide, obviously our share price has come up a lot, but we still think there's a lot of value left in the stock, and it is underpinned by our underlying reserves.
This is our reserve at the end of last year, the end of 2021, and then we've shown you the NPV 10% discounted value at $75, $85, and then what strip pricing was back at May 17, 2022. You can see that value ranges anywhere from CAD 1.3 billion-CAD 2.5 billion. The chart on the right-hand side takes those reserve values and breaking it out by the various components, Proved Developed Producing, Total Proved, or Proved plus Probable. You can pick the number that you're comfortable with. Then we show the price line of 1308, which was a few days ago when we had generated this chart.
You can see, you know, our share price is underpinned really by our PDP reserve value, with the considerable upside, based on 1P or 2P reserve values as, you know, depending on what price deck you would like to use. This obviously doesn't include any of the unbooked inventory that we have that Jay was talking about, as well as Clearwater upside. I think just the point we wanna make here is that the reserves are solid, and they are supporting a baseline here for the stock price. Next slide, please. To wrap it up, before we get into Q&A, you know, we think the company has excellent assets.
As the speakers have talked about, we've got a very strong carrying position with lots of inventory and running room and a low decline base. We've revitalized our Peace River asset, and it's underpinned by the existing Bluesky production and a very exciting opportunity emerging with the Clearwater. We generate tremendous free cash flow, which we'll use to bolster our balance sheet prior to looking at our investment options, as well as return on capital initiatives. That free cash flow will be sheltered from taxes for many years to come. That's an important differentiation, I think, about our company. Finally, I think we've been good stewards in our operations and with respect to the environment and the communities that we operate in, as Cliff went through.
I think the company is doing well. We've got an exciting plan ahead, and we're looking forward to executing on that. With that, I'll turn it back to Stephen and Susan to take us through our Q&A.
Great. Thanks, Peter. At this juncture, just want to thank everyone as we have now concluded the prepared section of the presentation. We'll take a moment to allow questions to come in, and at which point, we will answer them. Susan, over to you.
Great. Thanks very much, Steve, and thanks everybody for attending today. We've got several questions, some that have been sent into the investor relations line ahead of time, and we've got some through the call, so we'll just start right ahead with it. One of the first ones comes from Ken from Sound Investments. Can you speak to the future of the Viking property, please?
Sure. I'll take that initially before I hand it over to Jay. You know, as Jay alluded to, I think it's fair to say that a couple things. One, you know, we control the infrastructure in the area and as a result, we can grow production without having to spend capital on infrastructure. Two, with AECO prices where they currently are, you know, those wells have become a lot more competitive within our portfolio. So, you know, certainly there's a place for it within the portfolio, where we can continue to drill 8-12 wells a year and effectively fill our infrastructure.
I think it's also fair to say that at a certain price, you know, we would look to, you know, to potentially monetize it and recycle capital into other parts of the portfolio. I think, ultimately, we'll chase value. I think that's the way we think about it internally. Jay, I'll turn it over to you, and you can add your two cents.
Yeah, sure, Steve. The only thing I guess I would add to that, it's well stated, is that as you look at that development program, as we highlight on slide 17, seven of those wells are in that cluster of existing wells where we have established production and expectation. One of those wells, 422, is off to the west. It's a single well. Thus far, we have not readily developed that western side of that asset. It is wide open. Obviously, we're looking keenly at what the results on that 422 pad look like, but we expect that to open up a tremendous amount of additional potential in there that with these economics afford us a lot of flexibility and options as we move forward on that asset. That's it for me.
Great. Thanks, Jay. Thanks, Steve. A couple of questions around our debt level targets, one from Amit as to where you think the debt level targets will be at the end of the second quarter, and another one from Nicholas, that the long-term debt target is CAD 225 million, and how far away are we from that presently?
Sure. Peter, do you wanna take that?
The long-term debt target, CAD 225, you know, obviously will depend on what commodity prices are doing. We do expect that we will be approaching that in the fourth quarter of this year, assuming that prices continue to go in the direction that they're going. Our net debt probably at the end of this quarter is gonna be in that.
350 range, probably a little bit less. It depends ultimately on what the working capital number comes out as their program continues to be executed here.
Great. Thanks, Peter. We have a couple questions from different shareholders about the return of capital, and specifically, are there any updates on return of capital to shareholders from Jack? Where do you want to see the debt and production levels at before you start to return some of the free cash flow via buybacks or dividends from Ryan?
Yeah, sure. I'll take that. I mean, I think we've more or less outlined that both via the press release and some of the commentary during the presentation. We have an absolute debt target as it relates to this production base of approximately CAD 225 million. As Peter just alluded to, at strip, we'll approach, if not hit that, you know, towards the end of the year. At that juncture, we will definitively consider returns of capital. You know, how we prioritize between dividends versus buybacks will be a function of where the stock is trading at that point in time versus intrinsic value. If we were forced to make that decision today, we would prioritize buybacks over dividends, but that may change, you know, later this year or early next year.
Thanks, Steve. Follow-up from Jack is asking about if there's any, what about the transfers related to Whitecap and as well, you know, is there any option for a partnership there?
We've already publicly commented on our PC11, on the transfer of operatorship as it pertains to PC11. The terms of that transfer are undisclosed. Suffice it to say that Obsidian is not, you know, the type of company that gives away value for nothing. You know, we're happy with that transaction. We look forward to Whitecap operating that asset. We certainly look forward to participating in those wells. We think they'll be very strong performing wells, and who's to say what the future holds?
Thank you. From Ken, we also have a question on the results of the two deeper target vertical wells in the Pembina. He would like to know if there's another layer of deposits at a lower level.
Sure. Jay, you wanna take that?
Sure. Admittedly, in the presentation, we're being a little cagey about how we speak to that. In roundabout ways, we are fortunate that throughout that Pembina Field, particularly at Bigoray in our North Pembina assets, we have layered hydrocarbon deposits throughout the entire stratigraphic column. We see opportunity both deeper and shallower on these assets, and we plan to look carefully at it.
Great. Thank you very much. I don't know if we have anything to add on this, but I'll ask it. Mark has asked about for some details on the 156 wells, pipelines and facilities that were given to Whitecap that were approved by the AER. How did that play into the announced Whitecap broad commercial agreement?
Sure. Jay or Peter, do you wanna take that? I mean, the short answer pertains to PC11 and the transfer of operatorship. I wouldn't read into it beyond that. Peter or Jay, why don't-
Yeah, that's.
That-
That's what it's about. That's in order for them to be operator, we do need to transfer all those licenses, and that's what's occurred. It's just part of that transaction.
Great. Thanks, Peter. Going back to the operations area, from Ken, the Cardium produces the good stuff, light sweet, with the Peace River producing the heavier oil. With oil prices up, will we be focusing more on the Peace River now? I think you did answer to this, but you may have something more to add.
Sure. I'll take that, before I hand it over to Jay. I think the short answer is at these prices, both plays are better than good. They're great. You know, high netbacks in both plays, very attractive economics. You know, we control the infrastructure, and so as a result, I mean, I think it's fair to say that whereas historically or at least in recent memory, we've been very much focused on the Cardium, and it's been a one-legged stool. I think you can very much think of us now as being two-legged with a robust position in the Bluesky within Peace River and an emerging play in the Clearwater.
Yeah, I think that says it effectively, Stephen. I mean, the proof is in the well counts for the second half of the year, and you see a relatively balanced approach to what we plan to do in Peace River and what we plan to do in the Cardium, and that's a testament to both the economics, the flexibility, and the readiness on both assets.
The other point I would make is we couldn't put forth the development plan that we have if we exclusively focused it on the Cardium. That's not to suggest that we don't have the inventory to do so, but you would definitively run into capacity constraints in the way of gas processing, et cetera, and that would necessitate more capital and, you know, we're not looking to do that, so. Most importantly, you know, the well economics in Peace River stand on their own two feet.
Great. A question from Craig. Has the U.S. SPR release affected your heavy oil pricing?
I think it's fair to say that it's had a marginal impact of heavy oil differentials widening. I think it's a short-term dynamic defined as over the next couple of months, and at that juncture, it will abate. Once again, I mean, the economics are extremely robust, notwithstanding that heavy oil differentials might be a couple of dollars wider than they would've been two or so months ago.
Thanks, Steve. Now a question from Annette about hedging. He's questioning that, haven't seen as many June hedges coming out and wondering if we can anticipate limited hedging going forward given the program, or does this open it up with this new expanded program and, will you be protecting that? What is your approach around hedging?
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think at the end of the day, as it pertains to how we think about hedging at Obsidian, it's art versus science. You know, I'm not going to be systematic about it. I think it's fair to say that as our balance sheet has continued to improve, you know, the risks associated with volatility around commodity prices are a little bit less pronounced or can only probably a fair amount less pronounced than they've been historically. We've had a market view that prices are going higher. You know, we've been right. Doesn't mean we'll be right in the future. It doesn't mean that we won't hedge in the future. In the immediate near term, we've made a tactical decision to decrease the hedge profile. That could change tomorrow.
You know, I think it's fair to say we'll continue to hedge as we deem it to be prudent, overlaid with our market outlook.
Thank you. Question about infrastructure. A couple of people have asked if we have any infrastructure issues, pipelines, et cetera, and specifically, what's our present capacity constraint in Peace River?
Sure. Cliff, do you want to handle that?
Yeah. Thanks, Steve. No infrastructure challenges at this point in time. We've put a lot of effort over the years into revitalizing the pipeline gathering infrastructure and the facility infrastructure in the broader Cardium area. All of our gas plants are in great shape. Current on their turnarounds. Our pipelines, as mentioned, are running at a failure frequency half of industry average, and we've got plenty of capacity for any future development that we may want to take. Now, like Steve alluded to, we will get to a point where we're at capacity limitations on our facilities at some point. There are a few deep bottlenecking projects that we can tackle. At this point in time, no concerns at all. What was the question on the infrastructure in Peace River, Susan?
Yes, just asking about the present capacity. I'm assuming concerns that we have enough capacity for our advanced or increased drilling there.
Perfect. Thank you. Yes. That's the short answer. Absolutely. We have plenty of capacity for gas takeaway. Our pipelines are in good shape. As many of you know, the emulsion for Peace River is trucked out. Now, Obsidian owns and maintains most of the road infrastructure in the fields, in the areas up there. We have direct access to all of our pads and our sites. We have contracts in place with our major trucking companies that extend out up to two years from today, and plenty of resources that are available to us to move that oil. We also have a number of different terminal end points that we can get oil to. We're well diversified across pipeline and rail.
I have no concerns at all on whatever growth plans we put forward in Peace River when it comes to infrastructure capacity.
Great. Thank you. Stephen, this one's probably gonna come to you. We have a couple questions that are related, one from Ken, one from Sudha, about, you know, about the amount of reserves and the potential that Obsidian has. Are you concerned about an unsolicited takeover, or have there been any inquiries from other companies for a merger or buyout?
Yeah, I mean, listen, the last thing that worries me is an unsolicited takeover. This is a public company. We're implicitly for sale every day. I mean, I know others don't necessarily think that way, but, you know, that's fair to say that mindset is the mindset of this board. So, no, we're not concerned about it. We're obviously not going to comment as it relates to, you know, whether we have received any interest. We're just not gonna feed into speculation.
Great. One question from Tyler: Would Obsidian ever bid on firm transport on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion?
Cliff, do you wanna take that?
Sure. Yes, I think we're always looking for opportunities to improve our netbacks on our oil and secure egress. Now, that said, we have plenty of options, as stated, especially in the Peace River area, to move oil out at this point in time. Yeah, we'll take a look at it. If there's a value case in front of us that improves our netbacks and gives us better security when it comes to egress, then we'll always be shopping for that.
Thank you. One probably coming over to Peter about the share-based compensation. We have a couple questions on that. One is from Nicholas related to that future management performance bonuses are mitigated by some elements having reached their caps. How much more exposure is there this year to potential increases in these management performance bonuses? The other question is from Bill: Should there have been put a dollar cap in place with this stock-based compensation to account for the eventuality of a multiplying effect on the stock price?
Steve, you want me to take the first, and you take the second?
Sure.
Just to be clear, the management performance bonus is really what that is, if you look back to that slide, the PSU component that has a multiplier effect that can be between zero and two. That information is detailed on that slide. It's at about 1.9, based on how the stock has performed against its peers. That's how that is measured. Given that it's at 1.9 out of two, really there's not a lot more that will be liability that will be accumulated on those particular performance units. Again, out of the elements that drive the change in stock-based or share-based compensation, that will be a very small element on that.
Susan, can you please repeat the second question?
Certainly. Sorry.
Whether there should be a cap placed on the SBC?
Yes. If there should have been a cap, a dollar cap put in place on the SBC to account for the eventuality of a multiplying effect on stock price.
Listen, I'll answer the question as a material shareholder. The answer is absolutely not, right? I mean, we should want that SBC number to be as big as possible. I know I'm rooting for it as a material shareholder. I think when you look at kind of where this company's come from, I think there's an underappreciation as it pertains to some of the legacy issues that ailed this company. There certainly isn't an appreciation as it relates to everything we had to do to ensure that this company didn't file for bankruptcy, which we managed to do without diluting shareholders, as well as put ourselves in a position to buy back our 45% interest in Peace River when not one single bank in our syndicate was willing to lend to us.
I think the short answer is we're here today because of the hard work of this collective management team as well as the full employee base, as well as the board. You know, there's a number of directors, myself included, who've leaned in heavily with their personal relationships to help us get to where we are today. There's a full alignment between shareholders and management. If you look at the grant values at the time, they are well within market. The fact that the stock's gone up 10x, that's a high-class problem for all of us. You know, our job here is to get through this refinancing, which we will.
From there, ensure that we close the gap between current trading values and fair value because we're still materially undervalued relative to the comparables. I think as we work our way through this year and taxability and tax pools and cost inflation, you know, comes to the forefront, and the aggregate impacts of those factors are easier to sift through. I think our story is gonna stand out. You know, quite proud of what we've accomplished, and I think the employees, you know, deserve credit for it and deserve to be fairly compensated as well.
Thanks, Steve. I realize we're going a little over time. We just have a few more questions if that's acceptable. We have a follow-up from Tyler regarding the potential return of capital. Once the debt target is reached, would you consider a Dutch auction repurchase program to accelerate capital return?
I think it's fair to say we'll consider everything's on the table as it pertains to creating shareholder value. In short answer, yes.
Great. Thank you. One about decommissioning liability. A question from Ken is referring to the year-end 2021 note eight, about the decommissioning liability of CAD 596 million. He stated he understands how discounting works, but to write it off over 50 years results in a very low number in view of the reserve being 20 years life. Can you comment on that, please?
Sure. Peter, do you wanna take that? I can chime in as well.
Sure. The reserves actually have longer than the 20-year life. The way that schedule of the ARO and the discounting is done is what is based on when the projected end of life for each of those reserves, facilities, etcetera, would be. It's not. There isn't a mismatch there. That's the way that calculation is done.
Perfect. Thank you. Craig is asking about if we have all the infrastructure in place for our 23 expected levels. I do think Cliff responded to that, but if there's anything to add. Also asking if we have targets for debt levels by year end 2022 and midpoint 2023.
Sue, can you repeat the second part of the question, please?
Sure. The second part of the question is about targets for debt levels as at year end 2022 and midpoint 2023.
Well, we don't have a target, you know, for year-end 2022. To some extent, the market will dictate, you know, kind of where we ultimately get to a market pricing. You know, we've already outlined what we deem, you know, kind of our target level to be in the way of absolute terms. You know, we think we'll get there towards the end of the year, certainly early next year.
Susan, just to pile on to that.
Give ourselves a fair amount of optionality, as it relates to how we create value from there. Obviously, we've alluded to the fact that we would look to return capital, as to whether or not we would look to grow production, materially from there organically. You know, it's hard to answer that question, you know, given that it would be at least 12-18 months out. What I can-
Comment from Bill, back onto the compensation aspect. Is the current CAD 40 million accrued in directors compensation in line with your peers?
Yeah, go ahead, Peter.
First, you can add in. I think the answer would be yes, Bill. When I went through the share-based compensation, the method that we're required to account for them is a cash-settled method because of that cash-settled component. Others would have an equity-settled method, which has a totally different accounting treatment. Meaning that instead of getting cash, the directors would get, or employees would get, stock. Once they have that stock, they hold that stock, and they still get the same benefit of the run-up in the share price by holding that stock, unless, of course, they choose to sell it.
I think on balance, our compensation is in line, and it is just the fact, the way that we have had to account for it and how that shows up, which I think is, in my personal opinion, an anomaly in the accounting rules. Anyway, that's what we need to live with, and that's the way that is reflected.
Just to add to that, I would say that our plan is actually more shareholder friendly because we're settling in cash versus issuing shares that we deem to be undervalued. A nuance, but an important one.
Great. Thank you. Stephen, at this time I'm seeing no more questions in the queue, so if you'd like to wrap it up.
Great. Well, thanks, Susan. Want to thank everyone for attending this conference call. We hope that you leave the call excited as to the story. We certainly are, and we hope we've adequately answered your questions. Look forward to continuing the dialogue and rapport with many of the investors on the phone. As well as look forward to updating you as part of our 2Q earnings release in late July. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.