Nova Scotia says offshore explorers need to go deeper if they want results

Nova Scotia’s Department of Energy believes deepwater explorers frustrated with dry holes offshore Nova Scotia might be more successful if they drilled to greater geological depths.

“Not necessarily in deeper waters, but to deeper depths; or, in shallower waters, but to deeper depths,” Sandy MacMullin, director of resource assessment and royalties for Nova Scotia’s energy department, said May 2 at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas.

He said the energy department plans to unveil a comprehensive study in June suggesting explorers go deeper.

Six of seven deepwater Nova Scotia exploration wells thus far drilled in water depths greater than 1,500 feet have come up dry, with Marathon scoring the only discovery on its Annapolis prospect. That well was drilled to a geological depth of about 17,680 feet.

Nova Scotia’s energy department, which has access to all of industry’s offshore seismic studies and well data, has constructed a computer model simulating paths migrating hydrocarbons might take.

“We know the hydrocarbons are there, and we know the reservoirs are there, although we aren’t quite sure where they are,” MacMullin said. “But there is a suggestion that they are in deeper waters.”

Only 200 wells have been drilled offshore Nova Scotia, 120 of which were wildcats and the rest producers, in an area roughly one-fifth the size of the Gulf of Mexico. Nova Scotia’s energy department estimates the region’s entire offshore contains 40 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

However, the ExxonMobil-operated Sable field, located in shallower waters of the outer continental shelf, is the only producing field offshore Nova Scotia, generating about 400 million cubic feet of gas per day.

Deepwater exploration has occurred on just one one-tenth of Nova Scotia’s 540-mile offshore area. “We haven’t even begun to look at that nine tenths of what’s left along the shelf,” MacMullin said.

—Ray Tyson