New Brunswick gas hopes boosted

Gary Park

Backed by a glowing evaluation, Corridor Resources, a Halifax-based junior E&P, wants to step up the pace of natural gas development in New Brunswick.

Consulting firms APA Petroleum Engineering and Petrel Robertson Consulting have estimated Corridor’s McCully field may hold more than 200 billion cubic feet of gas, with a commercial potential of C$240 million.

If a 40-mile pipeline link is built to the Maritimes & Northeast system in 2006, the consultants believes 120 billion cubic feet (proved and probable reserves) and 164 billion cubic feet (proved, probable and possible reserves) could be recovered from “current and future wells drilled in the evaluation area.”

To date, Corridor has pumped 800 million cubic feet from the field for use at a nearby potash mine owned by Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan, which owns half the McCully field. Corridor’s net share of any gas sales from McCully would be 78 billion cubic feet from proved and probable reserves and 107 billion from proved, probable and possible – enough to prompt Corridor president Norm Miller to plan five more wells this fall at the field.

He suggested the field could be even larger if gas is found in several unexplored sections. Corridor believes it has cost data to make an “extremely attractive” case for exporting gas from New Brunswick.

But the consultants have cautioned that given McCully’s production performance, when the reservoir has shown a tendency to fill with groundwater as the gas is removed, there is a “key technical uncertainty” to full-scale development.