If it works in BC, it will work in Quebec
Although not part of the Utica Shales, it is encouraging to see the NG results coming out of Northern BC....700,000 million cubic feet a day with 5 to 8 Trillion cubic feet in reserves is pretty impressive...even by EagleFreshAir standards :)
CALGARY - Devon Energy Corp.'s (NYSE: DVN) land in northeast B.C.'s Horn River Basin contains up to eight trillion cubic feet of natural gas, but there are some daunting challenges in developing that resource, the head of the U.S. producer's Canadian division said Tuesday.
Devon's 620-square-kilometre land position in the emerging shale natural gas play has the potential to produce 700 million cubic feet per day, with between five and eight trillion cubic feet in reserves, Chris Seasons said Tuesday.
"This is not small by any stretch of the imagination," he told a investor conference hosted by Peters & Co. in Toronto.
However, Seasons cautioned that the Horn River is still in its early days and that many more challenges lie ahead before that play can be brought to the commercial level.
"Cost control is going to be an issue out here. Getting this thing onstream economically is going to be the challenge for us," he said.
Devon, based in Oklahoma City, is among the biggest players in the Barnett shale in Texas, one of the first and most prolific North American unconventional resource plays.
The company has been able to parlay some of its experience in the Barnett into its newer Canadian unconventional operations, Seasons said.
But working in Northeast B.C. has come with its own specific challenges.
"We're not drilling in the outskirts of suburban Dallas, we're drilling up in the bush," Seasons said.
Tapping into the natural gas by fracturing the shale and building horizontal wells is not easy in frigid temperatures, for instance.
But Seasons said: "I'm quite confident that we'll lick these."
A stretched service sector will also be tough for the industry as a whole, he said.
"My concern is that there will be a real shortage of technical staff and skilled trades to make this all happen," Seasons said, noting that Devon's size has allowed its needs to be met so far.
Devon is also keeping an eye on a possible dearth of supplies in the region, where transportation and other infrastructure has not yet been developed.
"I could see the day when there will be a real demand for sand, fresh water for pumping... these are all things that may constrain the overall industry at some juncture. For now Devon is doing just fine."