There’s gas for those with money

Canada’s in-place resource hiked by 60 trillion cubic feet; lifespan of discovered gas in kingpin western basin rated at 24 years

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

There is plenty of untapped natural gas potential in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin for those who are ready to take on high-risk exploration in what is now rated as one of the world’s highest-cost basins.

In the most comprehensive analysis of Canada’s conventional and unconventional gas resource potential, a committee of 35 industry and government volunteers has estimated Canada has 652 trillion cubic feet of original-gas-in-place, up 60 tcf from the previous calculation in 2001.

The Canadian Gas Potential Committee said most of the increase came from established plays in the WCSB and the inclusion for the first time in the committee’s three reports of recoverable coalbed methane.

It said the WCSB will continue to be the main source of supply in Canada for many years, although new supplies will require high levels of exploration, development and capital spending.

In addition to the 652 tcf of OGIP, the committee has increased its estimate of recoverable gas by 6 percent since 2001 to 366 tcf, but production since the 2001 report leaves the remaining potential marketable volume at 230 tcf.

WCSB: 24 years of conventional reserves

For the WCSB, the lifespan of remaining discovered conventional reserves now stands at 24 years, based on current production rates of about 6 tcf a year.

Of the 134 tcf of undiscovered resource potential in the WCSB, which extends from the Northwest Territories into British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the bulk is trapped in deep, small pockets of less than 1 billion cubic feet each.

Committee members believe there is at least one more conventional pool of up to 4 tcf waiting to be found in Alberta, likely in the Foothills region or on the border with British Columbia.

Scott Oldale, who led a team of geoscientists who contributed to the report, told the Financial Post that so far 70 percent of the WCSB’s resource has been discovered in 40,000 pools.

To unlock the remaining 30 percent, the industry will have to discover 440,000 pools, he said.

Oldale said that means high decline rates and higher finding and development costs, based on the committee’s calculation that 74 percent of the undiscovered gas potential lies in reservoirs containing between 250 million and 64 billion cubic feet.

Frontier basins will contribute

Those areas are estimated to have 188 tcf of OGIP, of which 88 tcf is thought to be recoverable.

The discovered frontier resource has been put at 63 tcf OGIP, with 125 tcf still undiscovered.

For the first time, the committee has put numbers on coalbed methane, estimating nominal marketable gas at 11 tcf to 45 tcf, with a most likely reference case of 26 tcf.

The committee’s updated numbers estimate OGIP from coalbed methane at 528 tcf, close to its 2001 figure.

Those estimates are being refined as Canada gains knowledge from exploration and production of coalbed methane.

Output from coal seams was about 300 million cubic feet in 2005 and now accounts for about 2 percent of Canada’s total volumes, but committee members are doubtful that proportion will reach the 23 percent in 2025 predicted by the National Energy Board.

No numbers assigned to shale gas, gas hydrate

Those who have been involved in hydrate research efforts in the Canadian Arctic say that if the resource can be developed commercially it could represent thousands of years of supply.

The new report, compiled by 35 industry and government volunteers, offers more geological background descriptions that were contained in the 2001 and 1997 reports and a more complete assessment of the frontier basins in which all established and documented conceptual plays are assessed.

It also uses an improved assessment methodology for exploration plans; drilling and discovery history by play for the WCSB; and a DVD-ROM to access all information, assessment and data for other studies.

Copies of the report are being sold through the Canadian Centre for Energy at www.centreforenergy.com.

Talisman Energy a ‘boomer,’ says CEO Buckee

He takes pleasure in using the word “boomer” in describing his company’s gas exploration successes in northeastern British Columbia — and why not.

On any scale, anywhere in Canada, Talisman has posted some of the best discoveries over the past two decades.

They also give Buckee a chance to do some crowing at the expense of his Canadian peer group, notably rival independents EnCana and Canadian Natural Resources.

The latest “boomer” was Talisman’s second major discovery in the Monkman area and was accompanied by solid results from two test wells in the shallower Triassic play.

The successful Brazion deep well, d-93-D (80 percent owned by Talisman and 20 percent by Seneca Energy Canada), followed last year’s b-60-E well that Buckee described as “the most prolific well in the basin in 2005 and we believe d-93-D is in the same league.”

He said both wells are “extremely value accretive” and are proof of why Talisman is “committed to its deeper conventional natural gas strategy in Western Canada.”

Capital budget boosted

On both fronts — spending and the focus of its activities — Talisman is taking a different route from EnCana and Canadian Natural, both of whom have slashed their upstream spending because of higher costs.

Buckee does not deny the inflationary impact — 25 percent of the extra money is attributable to the price of land and drilling.

But Talisman has been trying to shield itself from those increases through strategies such as longer-term contracting of rigs and bulk buying.

More importantly for the company, it is targeting deep conventional targets in Monkman, while EnCana is immersed in unconventional plays that need many wells to exploit tight, shallow formations — the type of activity that is affected by higher costs.

“We’re not manufacturing, we’re doing regular exploring for gas,” Buckee said, in an undisguised poke at EnCana.

“Our breakeven price is probably in the range of US$4.50-$5 per million British thermal units.”

Talisman suggested to shareholders at its annual meeting May 9 that the unconventional targets in northeastern British Columbia (where EnCana is the leading player) are unprofitable at current gas prices.

Talisman: ‘deeper and bigger’

Whether conventional or unconventional, northeastern B.C. has been touted for some time as the best bet to reverse declining trends in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin and is now the only province with a growing share of basin production.

In addition to what is now flowing from the region, company executives are confident that gas shales, coalbed methane and tight gas will emerge in a big way.

Regardless of its current economic hiccups, EnCana has predicted 75 percent of the province’s gas will come from what it calls resource plays in the Cutbank and Greater Sierra regions, where it controls moiré than 4 million acres.

EnCana, Devon Canada, Canadian Natural and Burlington Canada Resources (now absorbed into ConocoPhillips Canada) generated 60 percent of the tight gas production in B.C. last year.

Ron Eckhart, Talisman’s vice president of North American operations, told a conference last year that his company is putting its emphasis on plays below 10,000 feet, where the return per well is three times the industry average, although Talisman invested C$100 million to notch its b-60-E success.

—Gary Park