Utica Shale in Quebec (click for larger version)
The U.S. Geological Survey has put a number on the shale gas sitting under Quebec's St. Lawrence Lowlands: 9 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), technically recoverable, in the Canadian portion of the Utica Shale. That's real gas, in a province that imports every molecule it burns. Unfortunately, the USGS estimate landed just days before Quebec voters elected a new government that has no intention of letting anyone touch it. On Monday (Oct. 5), the Parti Québécois (PQ) won a minority government, the drilling-curious Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) was wiped out entirely, and the only party campaigning openly for Utica development, the Quebec Conservatives, finished third.
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