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| Original News Release |
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| Original News Release |
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Directional Drilling Optimizes Recovery of Resources Minimizes Environmental Impact · Horizontal and directional drilling technologies have been used by industry since the 1980s to maximize the extraction of gas from known reserves. This drilling technique can extend as much as 1,500 metres from a vertical well site. Resource recovery is optimized by entering the reservoir rock either laterally or at an angle, maximizing the surface area of the reservoir in contact with the bore hole. · This technology requires less road, less pipeline, fewer well sites per program and can conserve more gas than conventional drilling
Directional Drilling Currently Permitted Under Protected Areas · Directional drilling has been permitted to access oil and gas resources beneath British Columbia’s protected areas since 1997. Surface disturbance by drilling or related activities within any protected area is not permitted. · Conventional vertical drilling adjacent to protected areas actually allows the drainage of a portion of gas pools situated beneath the protected area. However, this approach is inefficient and strands much of the gas in the pool. These stranded resources can more efficiently be drained with directional drilling technology. · With advanced drilling technology, it is possible to situate a well site outside the boundaries of a protected area and more efficiently access known gas pools that may straddle the protected area boundaries, without disturbing the surface of a protected area. · Of the 48 protected areas in the northeast part of the province, directional drilling (including horizontal drilling) is permitted in 15.
Directional Drilling Offers Significant Resource and Revenue Potential · Conservative estimates are that between one and two per cent of the 1 tcf of natural gas currently stranded beneath the province’s protected areas is recoverable using directional drilling from outside the protected areas. During a 10-year period, direct provincial resource revenues from this stranded resource could total $13 to $26 million, made up of royalties of $10 to $20 million and P&NG tenure sale revenue in the range of $3 to $6 million capital expenditures by industry to support directional drilling programs could be in the range of $20 to $40 million.
Directional Drilling Common in Other Jurisdictions · Directional drilling is common practice in other jurisdictions such as Alberta and California.
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