Anderson suspends drilling for season at MacKenzie Delta gas well

Gary Park

Canada’s dreams of a major new gas discovery on the Mackenzie Delta are turning to mush as Petro-Canada and Anderson Exploration suspend drilling of a C$25 million well.

The two companies confirmed April 3 they will have to wait until next winter to resume work on their Kurk-L15 well, 125 kilometers north of Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. Drilling reached a depth of 2,695 meters when Petro-Canada, as 60 percent owner, and Anderson decided to withdraw for the season before an ice road to the site starts melting.

J.C. Anderson, chairman of Anderson Exploration, said “we can’t go further because if we leave the rig in there we are not even going to find the sucker next fall. It will sink out of sight.”

The well marked the return of onshore exploration to the Delta after a 24-year hiatus. It was the only well planned for the Canadian Arctic in the current season, although four more are scheduled for next winter.

Petro-Canada postponed a planned start date of Feb. 1 by two weeks because the ice road wasn’t thick enough to bear the weight of rig equipment being trucked to the lease. Imperial Oil, Shell Canada and Gulf Canada logged discoveries of 6 trillion cubic feet in the area in the 1970s.