White Rose oil project on track

Newfoundland’s third offshore oil field is expected on stream before Christmas, joining the Hibernia and Terra Nova projects.

Five of 10 initial development wells for White Rose have been completed and the remainder will be drilled during the summer.(See photos of the floating, production, storage and offloading vessel for the project on this page.)

The field, located about 210 miles southeast of St. John’s, has up to 250 million barrels of recoverable reserves.

It is designed to produce a peak 100,000 barrels per day and have an operating life of 12 to 15 years.

But Ruud Zoon, Husky general manager for East Coast development, indicated that results from drilling activities so far are “very much in line, or even better than what we expected,” pointing to a productive life exceeding 20 years.

Husky is 72.5 percent operator and Petro-Canada holds 27.5 percent.

Zoon said the C$2.3 billion White Rose venture is viewed by Husky as a “platform for future growth” in the region, adding that the project is on budget and 96 percent finished.

He said the next challenge is to figure out a way to tap into the natural gas potential of Newfoundland’s oil fields.

“We see gas as a very significant potential for Husky, for the province and for the industry to be developed in the longer term,” he said.

The options include using gas to fuel co-generation power plants in Newfoundland or exporting the production to U.S. markets.

Since last fall Husky has been examining proposals by nine companies to develop the gas, which is estimated at 2.7 trillion cubic feet for White Rose alone.

—Gary Park