Latest assessment increases NWT’s discovered oil and gas resources

CALGARY, Nov. 25, 2014 /CNW/ – Today the National Energy Board (NEB) released an “Assessment of Discovered Conventional Petroleum Resources in the Northwest Territories and Beaufort Sea” which found the overall resource assessment for the Northwest Territories (NWT) to be larger than what was previously understood.

The discovered conventional petroleum resource volumes in the study area are:

• 467.0 billion m³ (16.4 Tcf) of marketable natural gas;
• 195.1 million m³ (1227.8 million barrels) of crude oil; and
• 8.5 million m³ (53.3 million barrels) of natural gas liquids .

In the Beaufort Sea and NWT Mainland, natural gas estimates are up 40 per cent over previous NEB assessments, while oil is down 11 per cent and NGLs are down 25 per cent. This is the first time the NEB has done an analysis of the NWT Arctic Islands, so there is no comparison for change in that area.

The report is the first of its kind – compiling the data of the discovered petroleum resources in the NWT Mainland, NWT Arctic Islands and Beaufort Sea into one report. The report also includes a number of natural gas discoveries made in the NWT since 1999 that had not been included in the NEB’s previous national resource assessments.

The report’s assessment includes production volumes up to December 2013 from the Norman Wells oil field of the Mackenzie Plain, the Ikhil gas field of the Mackenzie Delta and the Cameron Hills oil field in the eastern side of the Great Slave Plain.

This report concentrates on discovered conventional natural gas, natural gas liquids and crude oil resources without establishing economic criteria related to development. Unconventional resources are not addressed in this report because of the early stage of development for this type of resource in the NWT study regions.

NEB staff will be delivering a presentation on this assessment and other topics at the Yellowknife Geoscience Forum from November 25 – 27, 2014.

The National Energy Board is an independent federal regulator of several parts of Canada’s energy industry with the safety of Canadians and protection of the environment as its top priority. Its purpose is to regulate pipelines, energy development and trade in the Canadian public interest.

SOURCE National Energy Board