Industry perspectives on barriers, hurdles, and irritants preventing development of frontier energy in Canada's Arctic Islands

摘要

The Canadian Arctic Islands and intervening channels are known to be rich in hydrocarbon resources. The combined Hecla and Drake Point discoveries of Sabine Peninsula on Melville Island have recoverable and marketable natural gas reserves estimated at almost 9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Proven reserves for the western Sverdrup Basin, drilled and delineated by industry exploration between 1969 and the early 1980s, are 17.5 Tcf gas and 1.9 billion barrels (bbl) of oil while total resources for Sabine Peninsula and western Sverdrup basin are estimated at 44 to 50 Tcf gas and 3.5 to 5.5 billion bbl oil (Chen et al., 2000). The Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) has recently released a report (Chan et al., 2005) which indicates that transportation of proven Melville Island gas is economically viable for development scenarios involving either liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker shipments to the eastern seaboard of North America or compressed natural gas (CNG) vessels to a Mackenzie Valley pipeline. In spite of these findings, however, there is still significant industry reluctance to develop the gas resources of the Arctic Islands.