Preparing for Development in the Canadian Beaufort Sea

ABSTRACT The Beaufort Sea in the Canadian Western Arctic is an area with significant oil and natural gas potential as demonstrated by exploration over more than 2O years. However, the area has not proceeded todevelopment because of the- lack of pipeline access and the environmental, socio-economic and institutional challenges in opening this sensitive area to development. This paper reviews the current status an recent developments which support the author's view that active development of the Canadian Beaufort Sea will proceed in the coming decade. INTRODUCTION The Canadian Beaufort Sea together with the neighbouring onshore area of the River Delta (Figure l)has been demonstrated to be a zone of substantial 011 and natural gas potential which will contribute significantly to petroleum requirements of North America in coming Years. Exploration which began in the 1960s and extended through the past decadeled to 27 significant discoveries of oil and natural gas. Some 89 wells have been drilled offshore 1n the Beaufort Sea (Figure 2). The Geological Survey of Canada has undertaken an extensive study of the petroleum resource potential- of till Mackenzie Delta - Beaufort Sea which gives a mean expectation of some 7 billion carrels of oil and nearly 70 TCF of natural gas ultimately to be developed from accessible areas of the Beaufort and Delta. Additional areasof deep water permanently covered withpack ice which will yield hydrocarbons in the more distant future are not included in this inventory. The study suggests that 20 percent of this oil endowment has been discovered and 17 percent of the gas. The geology of this major deltaic sedimentary basin, the results to date and the outlook for future exploration has been presented in detail in a companion paper by Mr. Graham Campbell in the Giant Fields section of2 this Offshore Technology Conference. It is evident that the Beaufort Sea will become a major petroleum producing area when constraints are overcome which have In the past restricted development. Preparation for the development of the oil and natural gas resource began as early as 1968 with the establishment of a Task Force on Northern Oil Development and the initiation of seismic exploration along the Arctic Coastal Plain. The report of the Task force issued in 1974 began a fifteen-year process of assessment, planning and evaluation which has proceeded in parallel with the exploration assessment. The early stage of planning brought to the forefront the social and economic concerns of northerners and native_ communities which would receive theimpact from development should a pipeline be constructed down the Mackenzie Valley. This concern led the federal government to set up an independent inquiry in 1974 led by Justice Thomas Berger to investigate the issues associated with a Mackenzie Valley pipeline. These communities were remote from areas of conventional oil and gas development in the south and followed traditional lifestyles in manyrespects, such as a reliance in some northern settlements on the seasonal migration of the caribou for a significant part of their annual food supply.