Boosting spending near big gas strike

Shell Canada is stepping up spending in the Foothills region of Alberta, encouraged by its late 2004 natural gas discovery in the Tay River area that ranked among the top five onshore finds in Canada over the past 35 years.

Exploration and development spending in the west-central Alberta play will jump to C$335 million this year, up C$100 million from 2004. With an estimated 500 billion-800 billion cubic feet of original raw gas in place, Tay River was credited to advances in seismic processing technology that help identify a previously undrilled reef formation and opened the door to a “whole string” of possible finds, said Shell Canada President Clive Mather.

But he issued a cautionary note that the possibility of further discoveries is speculative at this time.

—Gary Park

---

Did you find this article interesting?

Tweet it

Digg it

Print this story | Email it to an associate.

Click here to subscribe to Petroleum News for as low as $69 per year.