Nova Scotia offshore gas project rebounds
Nova Scotia’s offshore Sable gas project, which serves the New England market, has pulled itself out of a nosedive.
The latest numbers from the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board show production from the field grew 56 percent in the first five months of 2007 to 495 million cubic feet per day.
The steady growth was unbroken through the first five months, reversing a five-year decline from an average 530 million cubic feet per day in 2002 to 367 million in 2006, while estimated sales gas reserves have tumbled from 3.5 trillion cubic feet to 970 billion cubic feet.
Coming to the rescue has been a C$600 million investment in compression facilities at Sable’s main platform, allowing the ExxonMobil-led partnership to bring additional reserves into production.
The greatest about-face has occurred in the North Triumph field — one of five in the Sable operation — which crashed from 150 million cubic feet per day in 2002 to nothing in 2005 and is now back at 50 million cubic feet per day.
FirstEnergy Capital analyst Martin King said it is possible the resurgence will last one to two years.
The best bet for longer-term production security is EnCana’s proposed Deep Panuke project, costing C$700 million and designed to yield 300 million cubic feet per day if it clears regulatory hurdles and comes onstream in 2010.
—Gary Park
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