Letters to the Editor

Friday 14 October 2011

Jones consults variety of sources for shale gas numbers



Earlier we posted Tweets by CBC reporter Bob Jones mentioning the cubic amounts of shale gas measured for New Brunswick, and the repercussions that has for the province's royalties.

To recap, the Tweets are as follows:

"Vol. of nat. gas believed to be underground in NB: 78.2 trillion cubic ft. Value at current prices: $260 billion. At 2008 prices $1 trillion."

"Last year Alberta got about 53 cents per 1,000 cubic ft. Here that's $41 b. in the ground. 20% recovery = 8 billion."

We wondered where Jones got his figures. We consulted the Natural Gas Group for answers, however, they were unaware of the reports. 

We contacted Jones, and he was generous enough to pass the links along. We have posted them below for your perusal.


***We apologize for the visual quality of the links. It is a technical glitch by Blogger yet to be smoothed out.



#1.  National Energy Board Report - A Primer for Understanding Canadian Shale Gas.  Page 15 says the Horton Bluff deposit in New Brunswick/Noiva Scotia contains more than 130 trillion cubic feet of gas in place (GIP).  The same report indicates that extraction of gas from shale may be limited to 20% of deposits.

#2 Department of Natural Resources Fact Sheet.  In bullet form it lists Shale Resource Estimate in Sussex - Elgin area as 67.3 trillion cubic feet and in Hillsborough area as 10.9 trillion cubic feet for a combined 78.2 trillion cubic feet. 

#3 Alberta Oil magazine article listing natural gas royalties in 2010-11 as $1.9 billion 

#4 Globe and Mail article listing Alberta natural gas  production at 10 billion cubic feet/day last year, or 3.7 trillion cubic feet per year.

#5  Other issues:
Natural gas was trading at US$3.697 per million btu's in New York today.    There are 952 cubic feet of natural gas in a million btu's and the $CDN was trading at 98.55 cents at noon.