[Graeme]

Canadian Estimated Gas Reserves Astronomical

Canadian natural gas supplies will still last a century if all proposals for new tanker shipments to Asia succeed, the National Energy Board (NEB) has been assured.

Not even the biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) export scheme devised to date will shrink the stockpile enough to drive prices fetched by Canadian gas up to more than C$7/MMBtu (US$6.30/MMBtu), according to a report by Navigant Consulting Inc.

Steelhead LNG commissioned and filed the study to support applications for NEB licenses to ship out 45 Tcf at a rate of 4.5 Bcf/d for 25 years from a planned network of five plants on Vancouver Island.

"There is simply a huge abundance of natural gas to serve Canadian needs for hundreds of years, actually a considerably longer resource life than in the U.S.," said the report, which is based on a review of the latest estimates by the NEB and the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Navigant's analysis was accepted by the NEB in favorable rulings on other gas export license applications that relied on its earlier versions of its report for support.

The count of Canadian supplies rated as recoverable, using currently known technology, stands at an astronomical 1,444 Tcf. Canadian gas consumption is only about 3.6 Tcf per year, and will still be just 7.2 Tcf annually after a projected doubling over the next three decades.

naturalgasintel

[ROCKMAN]

Yes: have heard geologists talk for decades about the huge Canadian NG fields. One big problem was a combination of low prices and insufficient pipelines. With the boom in Asia NG demand/prices a new phase of Canadian NG my be on the horizon.

[rockdoc123]

I just don't see it. LNG if it becomes a going concern in Canada will only serve to raise the price to what will be a competitive world natural gas price based on LNG coming from all over the place (Qatar, Australia, North Africa etc). A number of years ago the company I was with conducted a global LNG review and came up with a "balanced price" of about $6/Mcf once all of the stranded gas promised in places like Australia and PNG come to LNG fruition. This was verified independently by a later WoodMac study (doesn't mean it's right, just means there are at least a few people thinking the same way). Currently in North America we still have more gas than we need (regardless of the pundits who point to the decreased storage this year it only takes a bit of a raise in price to increase shale activity and hence fill up storage).

Much of the Canadian gas is going to need a higher price than $6/Mcf to be economic for LNG transport.....a lot of it is now definitely economic at those prices but once you factor in that much of the resource is in places that are somewhat remote (NWT) or have First Nation issues that hinder economics it is difficult for me to see how it could all happen.

Just my opinion of course.

[dissident]

Canadian Estimated Gas Reserves Astronomical

The count of Canadian supplies rated as recoverable, using currently known technology, stands at an astronomical 1,444 Tcf.

naturalgasintel

Garbage, Canada's proven reserves are 58.2 Tcf. Some inane promoter rag claim is hardly evidence of Canada's vast reserves. Show the surveys that validate the large claim. Idiotic extrapolations similar to the inferences about Green River "oil" reserves being in the trillions of barrels don't fly.

[rockdoc123]

Some inane promoter rag claim is hardly evidence of Canada's vast reserves. Show the surveys that validate the large claim.

I believe this has all been published ...EUB and EIA. You can disagree with their methodology but it isn't "promoter rag claim".

There are also resource estimates by the GSC, the CSUG (Cdn Society for Unconventional Gas) as well as each province with resources (mainly BC, Alta, Sask and NWT) publish their own estimates. Again one can argue that the methodology is faulty but it can't be argued they are making the numbers up with no technical analysis.

[BobInget]

What if our grandfathers had the ability to mine and export quantities of gas proposed for today?

[ROCKMAN]

"Some inane promoter rag claim is hardly evidence of Canada's vast reserves". I would think that one company willing to spend $30 BILLION to export Canadian LNG would do enough research so as to not have to depend on such a source. Nor do I think the other 13 companies with plans to export some of those astronomical NG reserves would either:

Reuters - A closely held Canadian company has waded into British Columbia's crowded LN export fray with a plan to build a $30 billion terminal on Vancouver Island. Steelhead LNG said on Tuesday it had applied to Canadian regulators for permission to export up to 30 million tonnes of LNG a year for 25 years, joining a list of fourteen companies vying to build projects in the Pacific Coast province. The National Energy Board has already approved export licenses for nine projects in British Columbia. With Steelhead, it has five more under review, as global and domestic companies scramble to build the facilities needed to ship cheap Canadian gas to energy-hungry Asian markets. "It is a competitive market. If you look at where we are, we're certainly not the first to arrive," said Steelhead Chief Executive Officer Nigel Kuzemko. "But we're an independent, Canadian business, and as such we don't have any of the hang-ups some of the super majors might have."Many of the front-runners in the race to develop Canada's LNG industry are majors like Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp, who are concurrently developing rival projects in other parts of the world. Steelhead's export terminal, which would be designed to produce 24 million tonnes of LNG a year, would be built in Anacla, a remote village about 200 kms (125 miles) northwest of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

[dissident]

"Some inane promoter rag claim is hardly evidence of Canada's vast reserves". I would think that one company willing to spend $30 BILLION to export Canadian LNG would do enough research so as to not have to depend on such a source. Nor do I think the other 13 companies with plans to export some of those astronomical NG reserves would either:

Reuters - A closely held Canadian company has waded into British Columbia's crowded LN export fray with a plan to build a $30 billion terminal on Vancouver Island. Steelhead LNG said on Tuesday it had applied to Canadian regulators for permission to export up to 30 million tonnes of LNG a year for 25 years, joining a list of fourteen companies vying to build projects in the Pacific Coast province. The National Energy Board has already approved export licenses for nine projects in British Columbia. With Steelhead, it has five more under review, as global and domestic companies scramble to build the facilities needed to ship cheap Canadian gas to energy-hungry Asian markets. "It is a competitive market. If you look at where we are, we're certainly not the first to arrive," said Steelhead Chief Executive Officer Nigel Kuzemko. "But we're an independent, Canadian business, and as such we don't have any of the hang-ups some of the super majors might have."Many of the front-runners in the race to develop Canada's LNG industry are majors like Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp, who are concurrently developing rival projects in other parts of the world. Steelhead's export terminal, which would be designed to produce 24 million tonnes of LNG a year, would be built in Anacla, a remote village about 200 kms (125 miles) northwest of Victoria on Vancouver Island.

That's cute. Another plausibility argument. Still no actual reserve assessment numbers. These numbers should be detailed and available. A number over 20 times the proven reserve size from 2006 is simply not credible. What is credible is that fracking has become a point of hysteria where every rag talks about unbounded reserves as if all these tight gas formations are just like conventional gas formations. The word "tight" is usually omitted since it causes cognitive dissonance.

[rockdoc123]

That's cute. Another plausibility argument. Still no actual reserve assessment numbers. These numbers should be detailed and available. A number over 20 times the proven reserve size from 2006 is simply not credible. What is credible is that fracking has become a point of hysteria where every rag talks about unbounded reserves as if all these tight gas formations are just like conventional gas formations. The word "tight" is usually omitted since it causes cognitive dissonance

OK….as I said before, there has been published assessment of gas resources by various institutions (which I mentioned in my post above and you casually ignored). I think one of the better ones for saying what is known and what is uncertain is a report published in 2010 called “Assessment of Canada’s Natural Gas Resources Base” which was commissioned by the Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas with Petrel Robertson as the group that did the work. I can vouch for both of these groups. I know the former CEO of CSUG and also the former CEO for Petrel Robertson, both who were there at the time the report was written. These gentlemen are well seasoned oil and gas folks with a lot of resources in tow.

http://www.csug.ca/images/news/2010/Pet ... 202010.pdf

Note that the report points out that a lot is still unknown about shale “reserves” which is why they refer to them as “resources”. Once again I will remind everyone of the difference in terms: “reserves” refers to that which is economically recoverable under current technology ….”resources” to that gas which is determined to be in the ground but is not guaranteed to become “reserves”. This is the official terminology accepted by most stock exchange regulatory bodies…the USGS for some reason uses different terminology, which sometimes the EIA refers to creating confusion. The CSUG report clearly separates out “reserves” or recoverable gas from “resources”. This particular report used the USGS go to classification of “technologically recoverable” gas which is not accepted by securities regulatory bodies but refers to that gas which presumably we could get out of the ground whether it is economic to do so or not. The subtlety of the phrasing is important.

When someone says Canada has in excess of 1400 TCF of gas resources it isn’t a number pulled out of someone’s backside but a number arrived at by a lot of diligent work which also entails understanding the uncertainties. Where the problem becomes is someone reporting on this interchanges “reserves” for “resources” because they like the word play better and don’t understand the significance. Suggesting that all “resources” are the same thing as “technically recoverable” is a bit of a stretch in that recovery factor comes into play. The amount of that gas that actually becomes produced is a product of the interplay between commodity pricing, cost management, technological improvement, infrastructure design and location, political will, manpower availability and cost, environmental cost etc etc. It isn’t an equation that is solvable.