The National Energy Board of Canada released a resource assessment today, examining the Duvernay Shale of Alberta.
Deposited during the Devonian Period, the Duvernay Shale is located throughout central Alberta, running from Grande Prairie almost to Calgary. Located near, and in some locations directly below the Montney, the Duvernay is part of the larger Western Canadian petroleum system.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: National Energy Board
The NEB estimates that the Duvernay’s marketable resources are 76.6 Tcf of gas, 6.3 billion barrels of NGLs and 3.4 billion barrels of crude oil. “Marketable resources” represent the total amount of petroleum that can be recovered from the formation, not the actual reserves nor the original hydrocarbon in place.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: National Energy Board
According to Reuters, this makes the Duvernay the largest resource of unconventional crude oil and condensate in Canada. However, the Duvernay’s natural gas reserves are exceeded by two other basins in Canada. The Montney wears the crown with the largest natural gas resource, 449 Tcf recoverable. Following the Montney is the Liard Basin with 216 Tcf, located in British Columbia, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.
(Click to enlarge)
Source: National Energy Board
Best rock lies in western Duvernay, around Whitecourt, Alberta
In its assessment, the NEB split the Duvernay into two plays, the East Shale Basin and the West Shale Basin. The West Shale Basin is the larger of the two by a significant margin, and holds a much larger area of sufficient quality that it was assessed. Other locations were not assessed because “they were considered unlikely to be developed; such as where the Duvernay Shale is less than 10 m thick, is under pressured, where its mapped in-place gas contents are less than 50 m3 of volume per m2 of area, and where oil contents were more than 2000 barrels per million cubic feet of gas (i.e., there is too little gas in the reservoir to help drive the oil out).”
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