Setback for Yukon upstream

A sag in exploration interest in Canada’s Yukon has extended to four years when industry passed up the latest chance to bid for oil and gas rights.

The territory’s biannual request for postings drew a blank by the Jan. 8 deadline, following a similar response to a request for posting in July 2013.

The losing streak extends back to 2010 when Northern Cross made the last successful bid for a permit in the Eagle Plain area.

Ron Sumanik, director of oil and gas resources with the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, told the Whitehorse Star it was not “out of the ordinary” for the government to attract no postings considering that the Yukon is a frontier region.

He said the factors working against the Yukon include the high cost of exploration, low natural gas prices and limited infrastructure, with only Eagle Plain and Liard of the Yukon’s eight basins accessible by highway.

Liard has the added benefit of access to a gas processing plant and a pipeline to deliver production to market.

Sumanik said an interim moratorium on the use of hydraulic fracturing could undermine interest, while a select committee of the territorial legislature investigates the issue.

Pending an outcome, rights are available for only conventional resources, he said.

—Gary Park