Northwest Territories shale plays get rating

Gary Park

For Petroleum News

Shale fields in the Northwest Territories may hold at least 200 billion barrels of oil based on a first official estimate by Canada’s National Energy Board and the NWT Geological Survey.

The evaluation covered the unconventional resource potential of two shales - Canol at 145 billion barrels and Bluefish at 46 billion barrels.

The estimate did not attempt to calculate recoverable oil because the agencies are not certain whether the shales are capable of commercial production and because well results are not yet in the public domain.

However, even if only 3 percent of the deposits are recoverable the shales would be in the same range as the Bakken, where technically recoverable oil was placed at 7.4 billion barrels in 2013.

The fields are located in the Mackenzie Plain, part of the Mackenzie Arc exploration region, which is located within the Northern Canadian Mainland Sedimentary basin.

Imperial Oil, Shell Canada, Husky Energy and ConocoPhillips have all conducted programs in the Canol, where 14 exploration licenses have been awarded over the past four years and attracted work commitments of C$627.5 million.

Seven exploration wells have been drilled since 2012, but the slump in oil prices has virtually shut down operations.

Industry Minister Dave Ramsay said the study “confirms what we have known all along - that there is significant petroleum potential” in the Sahtu region.

“If developed, these petroleum resources would create jobs and business opportunities and provide royalties to (the NWT government) and aboriginal governments to support investment in northern priorities.”

The resource estimates also provide an added push for the NWT to continue its search for pipeline links to North American and offshore markets, including its efforts to gain support from Alaska for a possible pipeline from the NWT and the Alberta oil sands down the Mackenzie River Valley and across the Yukon to terminate at the Valdez terminal.

The latest NWT production statistics were limited to 13,000 barrels per day in 2013, mostly from the declining Norman Wells field, with volumes being shipped by an Enbridge pipeline to northern Alberta.

Natural gas output was 12 million cubic feet per day at Liard, close to the British Columbia border.