Showing posts with label Corridor Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corridor Resources. Show all posts

30 July 2010

Game on! Feds and Quebec start talks on Gulf Accord

The Government of Quebec and the federal government started talks recently aimed at achieving an agreement on revenue sharing for any oil and gas in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Canadian Press reported.

Details about what the deal would entail, and when it would be implemented, remain vague. But [federal natural resources minister Christian] Paradis described the broad outlines while standing next to [Quebec natural resources minister Nathalie] Normandeau at an event earlier this week.

"We're talking about an administrative deal," he said.

"The goal is to create an office of hydrocarbons, as is the case in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland."

At the heart of the move is a potentially lucrative field known as Old Harry.  Believed to contain significant natural gas or oil reserves, the field lies across a boundary between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador proposed in 1964 but never accepted. 

Both Quebec and the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board have issued permits to Corridor Resources to explore Old Harry.

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Related:

22 July 2010

Drill, baby, drill: Dunderdale rebuffs Quebec concerns about border, offshore oil spills

In a letter to Quebec natural resources minister Nathalie Normandeau, Newfoundland and Labrador deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale said that the provincial government had no plans for a moratorium on oil drilling offshore and dismissed any question about the interprovincial border in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The Montreal Gazette reported Wednesday on the exchange of correspondence between the two ministers in a story that highlights the border dispute and its impact on oil exploration in the Gulf.

According to the Gazette, Normandeau wrote Dunderdale to ask what measures were contemplated in light of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dunderdale replied that Newfoundland had adopted "new oversight measures," had no plans for a moratorium on offshore drilling, and noted Normandeau's reference to a " 'cross-border geological structure,' by which I assume you are referring to the Old Harry prospect."

There’s no clear indication when the letters flew back and forth but the provincial government’s position has been clear since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in late April.

ood harry

Premier Danny Williams dismissed calls for an offshore drilling moratorium in early June.  As in his remarks in early May, Williams focused on three fields in the north Atlantic.  He ignored other areas including the Gulf of St. Lawrence where the Old Harry field promises to match or dwarf Hibernia in size.

Williams referred to meetings he held in Calgary with officials of two companies operating offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.  As CBC reported,

The premier said he's confident the companies are doing everything possible to prepare in case a similar situation ever happens off the province's shores.

"I also asked them to elaborate for me on what additional measures have been put in place and am actually in the process of preparing a list and would only be too delighted to provide a list of the safeguards that were in place and the additional safeguards that are being put in place," Williams said…

It was not clear from the context of his comments if he was meeting with them in his capacity as premier of the province or as their de facto partner in offshore oil development. In some respects that wouldn’t matter since under some conditions of the Hebron agreement, Williams is legally obliged to follow the position dictated by the oil companies to oppose any new regulations that would  - in the opinion of the oil companies – adversely affect Hebron development.

Corridor Resources holds exploration permits from Quebec and from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board for the Old Harry field.  Work on the permits has been hampered by a dispute over the border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador and by the absence of a jurisdiction arrangement between the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada over the seabed resources in the Gulf.

While Danny Williams has been focusing his public comments on the distant offshore – and downplaying the implications as a result -  a spill from any future Old Harry development could have disastrous consequences.  This map, produced earlier this year, shows a map of the British Petroleum spill superimposed on Old Harry.

The dashed lines represent interprovincial boundaries but, for Newfoundland and Labrador,  only the one between the province and Nova Scotia is formally in place.  The boundary with Quebec shown in this map has never been formally adopted.

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12 May 2010

Corridor hits big gas

The company looking to explore the Old Harry oil prospect in the Gulf of St. Lawrence has another discovery on its hands.

According to CBC, Corridor Resources president Norm Miller told a Halifax audience Tuesday that Corridor and its partner Apache found a significant deposit of natural gas in Sussex County New Brunswick.

The gas find came in a hole originally drilled and abandoned 11 years ago.  Miller said that new technology allowed Corridor to find gas in a shale bed where it previously missed it. The Chronicle Herald reports the find is the largest shale gas deposit in North America. One independent estimate projects as much as 67 trillion cubic feet of natural gas could be found in that area of New Brunswick.

The find is also related to Corridor’s ongoing exploration for oil in New Brunswick. [map]

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