EnCana sees quick rise back to top gas producer

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - EnCana Corp's (ECA.TO: Quote) natural gas spinoff should regain top spot among North American gas producers within two years as output from its East Texas and other properties ramps up, the company's chief financial officer said on Wednesday.

EnCana, which announced on May 11 it is splitting in two, says it is currently the continent's biggest gas producer, but that will change with the reorganization.

The other spinoff -- the integrated oil sands firm -- will own EnCana's Western Canadian shallow natural gas assets, which produce 860 million cubic feet a day.

The gas firm has estimated 2008 production of more than 2.9 billion cubic feet a day, making it the continent's No. 2 gas producer, EnCana said.

"With think we will exit 2008 about 200 (million cubic feet a day) higher than that because of the growth that's coming out of the Amoruso field in East Texas," EnCana CFO Brian Ferguson said at a UBS global energy conference in Austin, Texas.

"So we think within 12 to 24 months, it will again be the largest producer of North American natural gas," said Ferguson, who will be chief executive of the oil sands firm.

In the first quarter, EnCana produced 3.73 bcf a day from all its gas holdings.

The gas firm, which will retain the EnCana name, will concentrate on the company's unconventional resource play properties in northeast British Columbia, the U.S. Rocky Mountain states, and Texas.

Those consist of large, tricky-to-access tight sands and shale gas reserves that require active drilling and high-tech rock fracturing methods.