Shell Canada hangs question mark on B.C. offshore reserves

Gary Park, PNA Canadian correspondent

No-one knows how much oil and natural gas can actually be recovered from the British Columbia offshore, raising doubts about reserve projections for the region, said Scott Trollope, Shell Canada Ltd.’s chief geologist and manager of new business development for the frontier business unit.

He told a natural gas conference in Vancouver Sept. 19 that widely quoted resource figures are subject to misunderstanding because they have “created expectations that are not likely to be met.”

The most used numbers are from the Geological Survey of Canada, which has estimated reserves at 9.8 billion barrels of oil and 25 trillion cubic feet of natural gas for the Queen Charlotte Basin, the dominant basin off the British Columbia coast.

Trollope said it is still not certain how much of the “in place” resources can be extracted. However, the general rule of thumb suggests that 25 percent of oil and 70 percent to 80 percent of the gas are recoverable.

Meanwhile the Queen Charlotte reserves “are only conceptual,” he said.

Shell Canada, Petro-Canada and Chevron Canada Resources own the significant leases in the area. All three have said the unresolved issues of ownership and management of the offshore, plus aboriginal land claims, environmental concerns and whether the reserves can be commercially developed means there is a long way to go before they make any firm decisions on exploration.