Canada’s natural gas and CO2 stimulated oil

Encana is the largest natural gas company in Canada and is active in the Horn River and Montney natural gas fields in British Columbia. Encana has proven reserves of 13.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Horn River wells are currently producing in the order of 3 to 5 million cubic feet a day per well. Encana plans to drill 50 to 100 wells per year into this formation.
EnCana claims the initial discovery at Horn River may have 6 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Encana also has sequestered 10 million tons of CO2 and could go to at least 30 million tons with full development in Weyburn. They use the CO2 to enhance oil recovery to 50%. They get 14,000 barrels a day from the Weyburn field.

The Encana portion of the Montney has 500 million cf to 1 billion cf a day long-term potential. [35.3 cubic feet in one cubic metre, so that amount would be 14.16 million to 28.3 million cubic metres/day, 3-6% of Canada’s total natural gas production] They currently are getting 120 million cf/day. Well rates in the Montney are very consistent between 5 and 10 million cubic feet a day. Encana’s production from their portion of the Montney could be 6-12% of Canada’s total current natural gas production.

New natural gas finds in Canada:
– Ootla, about 60 miles from Fort Nelson in northeastern British Columbia, may hold 9 trillion to 16 trillion cubic feet of gas. Horizontal wells test flowed at rates of 8.8 million cubic feet, 6.1 million cubic feet and 5.3 million cubic feet of gas a day.
– Montney find in BC (50-80 trillion cf)
– the Horn River basin (12+ trillion cf.)
– Quebec Utica Shale based on some of the Canadian-based research on the play to date the size of the resource is being estimated between 24 and 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Smaller but significant find of 1.6 tcf in Southern Ontario

The total new reserves are 97 tcf to 140+ tcf. If they were developed with production rates proportional to Encana’s efforts then they would provide 8 bcf/day to 22 bcf/day. The current projection if for Canada to produce 15 bcf/day in 2009 [5.5 tcf per year]. So these new finds appear likely to reverse the decline in Canada’s natural gas producton.

EOG Resources could have 6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in their portion of the Horn River Basin. They have not released new test well data.

FURTHER READING
Nextbigfuture’s initial article about Canada’s natural gas