What are some of the greatest opportunities for oil & gas development in Canada’s Arctic in the near future?
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Doug Matthews
Energy Analyst/Writer
Matthews Energy Consulting
Canada’s Beaufort Sea has oil and it has natural gas. The world wants the former and can live without the latter so any future development of Beaufort resources will be focused on oil. While the region is challenging -ice, cold, dark- it also has a number of significant advantages over many other North American basins. It is well regulated with both the National Energy Board and the Inuvialuit environmental regimes having had long experience in the region. It is fiscally attractive to industry with a long-standing and we’ll understood profit sensitive royalty regime. Luckily, the oil is located under water which means that eventual production can be tankered to anywhere in the world, thus overcoming the challenges faced by pipeline development in North America today. And last, and perhaps most importantly, Beaufort oil will be from the very start of exploration, subject to rigorous environmental oversight, giving it an advantage in the public mind over both tar sands and shale oil.
Doug is the Arctic Oil & Gas Symposium co-chair. Partner Borden Ladner Gervais
In the era of sustainable development , environmental issues are playing a greater role in how we take advantage of opportunities in the resource sector. The Canadian Arctic is an area where continued oil and gas development will push developers and stakeholders to find innovative solutions to the challenges associate with environmental protection within remote areas and the preservation of traditional ways of local peoples. This, I see as an opportunity, as these solutions will be exportable to other areas of the world where similar challenges have not yet had the opportunity of being addressed.
Hear Peter on: ‘Weighing the Benefits and Risks of Commercializing Canada’s Northwest Passage’ VP New Product and Business Development Canatec Associates International Ltd
It is technically feasible to export Alberta bitumen north to the Mackenzie Delta region and then transport it by tanker to Asian and European markets. With the general reduction in severity of ice cover in the arctic shipping lanes, the operational season will grow. There are massive mineral, oil and gas resources in northwestern Canada that also require marine transport; they can share and benefit from common marine logistical infrastructure. However, the greatest and most durable benefit could come from stimulating the creation of technology-intensive enterprises in Canada to innovate new products and services required for safe, sustainable and environmentally-responsible resource development in the Arctic. In the 1970s and early 80s, Alberta led the world in arctic marine technology development. While this lead has long since disappeared after the decline of Beaufort Sea offshore petroleum industry in the late 1980s, and new competitors, principally Scandinavian, have grown, there are new opportunities in fields like robotics, remote sensing, materials, electronics and software. Newfoundland has shown how a long term, consistent goal of investing royalties from offshore petroleum production can create many profitable companies supplying high-tech products and services to the marine industry around the world. We have the expertise and the models to make tremendous advances in building new knowledge-intensive businesses to support arctic petroleum development and create sustainable employment not only in the south, but in the north. The Governments of Alberta and Newfoundland need to take the lead, work together and put this issue on the federal agenda.
Hear Scott on: ‘Weighing the Benefits and Risks of Commercializing Canada’s Northwest Passage’
Richard Wyman
President
Northern Cross (Yukon) Limited
The Eagle Plain Basin is the largest onshore sedimentary basin in Yukon. Although there has been industry activity dating back to the 1950’s, the region is underexplored. Eagle Plain offers the potential for both crude oil and natural gas resources from a variety of geological settings. Modern techniques, like 3D seismic, will help unlock the energy resource potential of the area.
The Yukon is an energy intensive region partly because of the climate, but also because of the economic significance of resource extraction industries to the Territory. Opportunities offered by oil and gas development in Yukon include economic diversification, significant synergies with other sectors of the economy (notably mining), greater self-reliance in terms of energy supply, and building a new industry that could establish the entire chain of value creation from source to end use within Yukon.
Unlike many other areas of northern Canada, the combination of straightforward access by way of the all season Dempster Highway and the presence of bed rock at or near the surface allows for year round operations. Moreover, the potential for transportation infrastructure, like pipelines, to be built along the Dempster Highway corridor, as envisaged in the past, is still a technically viable alternative to connect currently stranded resources in northern Canada to domestic and international markets.
Hear Richard on: An Operator’s Perspective on Oil & Gas Development in the YukonMeet Doug, Peter, Scott and Richard at the 14th Annual Arctic Oil & Gas Symposium
When: March 11 & 12, 2014
Where: Hyatt Regency Hotel, Calgary, Alberta
How: Register Now