Northwest Territories on brink of exploration drilling boom

Gary Park

Canada’s Arctic, after spending most of the last 25 years in a deep freeze, is on the verge of turning an exploration thaw into a flood.

Speakers at an international petroleum conference in Calgary said the prospect of a natural gas pipeline from the Mackenzie Delta has producers gearing up for an unmatched burst of activity.

The National Energy Board said 50 wells are licensed for the Northwest Territories in the 2001-02 drilling season, 30 more than last winter, and more than the total since the mid-1970s.

Dennis Seidlitz, Gulf Canada’s frontier development manager, said from four to seven gas exploration wells and 15 seismic programs are expected on the Delta in the upcoming winter.

Gulf Canada itself plans a 700-square-kilometer three-dimensional seismic program at its Parsons Lake Significant Discovery License.

The 74,000-acre license, 75 percent owned by Gulf and 25 percent by ExxonMobil Canada, has 1.8 trillion cubic feet of recoverable reserves.

Seidlitz said the 2-D and 3-D seismic data Gulf will own will set the stage for a C$20 million well in the 2002-03 season.

Gulf is also part of the Mackenzie Delta Producers’ Group, along with Imperial Oil, ExxonMobil Canada and Shell Canada, which is due to released the findings from its feasibility study this year.

If the consortium decides to take the next step towards development, it plans to keep the concept as simple as possible, said Rick Luckasvith, Imperial’s engineering adviser.

He said production could involve up to 10 wells each on the Taglu, Parsons Lake and Niglintuk fields.

The gas would be shipped to a hub and dehydrated, with gas and natural gas liquids carried in the same 30-inch pipeline to Norman Wells, in the central Mackenzie Valley.

The liquids would be removed there and delivered to market in the existing Enbridge pipeline from Norman Wells and a new gas pipeline would be built parallel to the Enbridge right-of-way, with provision for future expansion.

Initial production would range from 800 million to 1 billion cubic feet per day, plus 11,000 to 13,000 barrels per day of condensate.