The pace of output growth could quicken and the estimated size of the resources could rise as activity picks up and knowledge of the fields improves, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. “The Montney is thought to have about half the recoverable resources of the whole oil sands region, so it’s formidable,” Marty Proctor, chief executive of Calgary-based Seven Generations Energy, told Reuters in an interview.Ĭanada’s shale output stands at about 335,000 bpd, according to energy consultants Wood Mackenzie, which forecasts output should grow to 420,000 bpd in a decade. Together, the Duvernay and Montney formations in Canada hold marketable resources estimated at 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 20 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 4.5 billion barrels of oil, according to the National Energy Board, a Canadian regulator. China, Russia and Argentina also have ample shale reserves but have yet to overcome the obstacles to full commercial development.Ĭanada, by contrast, offers many of the same advantages that allowed oil firms to launch the shale revolution in the United States: numerous private energy firms with appetite for risk deep capital markets infrastructure to transport oil low population in regions that contain shale reserves and plentiful water to pump into shale wells. shale fields.Ĭanada is the first country outside the United States to see large-scale development of shale resources, which already account for 8 percent of total Canadian oil output.
Now Canada is looking to its own shale fields to repair the economic damage.Ĭanadian producers and global oil majors are increasingly exploring the Duvernay and Montney formations, which they say could rival the most prolific U.S. FILE PHOTO: A construction site at the new Suncor Fort Hills oil sands mining operations near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, September 17, 2014.