Questerre Energy

In the end, we didn’t think they would actually do it–but they did. The province of Quebec, Canada, with a huge supply of Utica Shale gas sitting beneath it, has just passed a new law outlawing all oil and natural gas production throughout the province. It is a breathtaking grab of totalitarian power. It’s also energy suicide. Quebec says it will pay a piddly $79.5 million (US) to expropriate the oil and gas drilling rights of companies owning those rights in the province. We’ve seen estimates that those rights are worth more than $5 billion. Questerre Energy, which owns more than 1 million acres of leases and an estimated 6 Tcf of Utica Shale reserves in the province, is considering its next legal move.
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You have to hand it to Canada-based Questerre Energy Corporation, they are doing everything they possibly can to clear a path for drilling on their extensive Utica Shale acreage located in the province of Quebec, Canada. (Yes, there is Utica Shale in Canada!) Questerre’s latest effort is to study alternative completion techniques to fracking. As you likely know, fracking involves using underground explosives to blow holes/cracks into the surrounding shale rock layer, allowing trapped gas (and oil) to escape. What if you could use existing cracks without blowing holes and creating new cracks?
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This is getting interesting. Last week MDN told you that Canadian driller Questerre Energy has found a way to fight back against Quebec, Canada’s insane, irrational plan to outlaw all oil and gas drilling–including drilling in the province’s Utica Shale layer–by forming an alliance with a local Indian tribe to drill on Indian land (see Questerre Finds Way to Circumvent Quebec’s Utica Drilling Ban). Less than a week later, the Indian Resource Council of Canada (IRC), an organization representing more than 130 First Nations (Indian tribes) across the country that produce energy or have direct interests in the energy industry, has joined the fight in support of Questerre. It has set up a battle between Quebec and the country’s First Nations.
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This is quite clever. Last October the province of Quebec, Canada announced it will expropriate all of the rights for all oil and gas companies in the province to drill and extract oil and natural gas (see Lights Out for All O&G Production in Quebec, Including Utica Shale). It’s all being shut down–including actively producing wells. Questerre Energy Corp., which owns more than one million acres of Utica Shale leases in Quebec, may have just found a way around Quebec’s oil and gas drilling ban.
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Last March MDN told you that Questerre Energy, a Canadian driller who has patiently waited for years to begin drilling on their extensive Utica Shale acreage in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec, Canada, had hammered out an agreement with joint venture partner Repsol to buy out Repsol’s ownership interest in 753,000 Utica acres (see Questerre Energy Picks Up Another 753K Utica Acres in Quebec). The deal is now, finally, done. The question is: Will Questerre ever get to drill on their acreage?
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You gotta give Questerre Energy Corporation credit–they keep trying, even in the face of total opposition. Questerre, a Canadian driller, has patiently waited for years to begin drilling on their extensive Utica acreage in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec–even though last year Quebec all but permanently banned such drilling (see Quebec to Ban Utica Shale Drilling, Most Other Drilling Too).
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Last year the Canadian province of Quebec decided to ban pretty much all oil and gas drilling (see Quebec to Ban Utica Shale Drilling, Most Other Drilling Too). The ban hits Questerre Energy, a Canadian driller who has patiently waited for years to begin drilling on their extensive Utica acreage in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec, the hardest. Yet even with the ban Questerre continues to buy more Utica acreage.
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Although the primary focus of Marcellus Drilling News has always been on Marcellus and Utica Shale gas (and oil) as found in the northeastern U.S., the Utica Shale also underlies part of Canada’s Quebec province. From time to time we highlight news concerning the Utica in Canada. There hasn’t been much news to highlight over the years since Quebec has had a moratorium on fracking at least as long as New York’s moratorium (now at 9 years and 9 months and counting). But as we reported in December 2016, something of a minor miracle happened–the Quebec National Assembly voted to pass Bill 106, ostensibly to support Quebec’s “clean power plan” (see Fracking in Canadian Utica Shale Takes Big Step Closer to Reality). The bill includes a section that “lays out a framework for oil and gas development” in Quebec. Fracking will not begin immediately. The bill does, however, mean that new regulations will come along in 2017 and after that, it’s an almost certainty that fracking will begin. Those draft rules were finally been released in September of this year (see Quebec Government Publishes Draft Utica Fracking Regulations). Questerre Energy, which owns Canadian Utica leases in Quebec and has long lobbied get the government to allow Utica drilling. In Questerre’s recently-released third quarter 2017 update we get an update on their plans to drill in the Canadian Utica. The company says if progress continues with the draft regulations, they have eight well pad sites picked out where they will drill first–in locations that have been oil and gas friendly in the past…
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