May 1, 2024
Canada’s East Coast Offshore: 70 Years of Oil & Gas History
by Dr. Brad Hayes, Petrel Robertson Consulting Ltd.
12 noon, Wednesday May 1st, 2024
Calgary Petroleum Club, 319 - 5 Avenue SW, Calgary (Check marquee for room)
Dress – business casual.
P.H.S. Members and Student Members $40 and Guests $45 (most welcome).
Only cash or cheque at the door.
Payment can be made in advance by Interac transfer to treasurer@petroleumhistory.ca or PayPal (please request PayPal invoice from treasurer@petroleumhistory.ca). Please advise payment method with reply.
Soup, sandwiches and cookies. Gluten-free? Vegan? Advise with reply.
Registration instructions:
Please contact Director Ross Hicks at either 403-271-7753 or via his e-mail at ross_hicks@yahoo.com (note the underscore: ross_hicks).
The deadline for registration is Monday, April 29th at noon, preferably sooner.
Please be advised that those who register but do not attend or cancel after the deadline will be invoiced. Those who do not register by the deadline may not be accommodated. These restrictions are related to our obligations to the Petroleum Club in terms of catering and seating.
The P.H.S. has received a generous offer from ATCO, our 2022 Multimedia Award winner, to make available to May 1 luncheon attendees a copy of their book “Epic Legacy” written by George Johnson about the company on its 75th anniversary. This three volume set won the P.H.S. Book of the Year Award for 2021. Copies will be delivered to the Petroleum Club and will need to be picked up at the luncheon by those requesting a copy. Note that the set is fairly large and heavy so provision needs to be made for its transportation home if you are going to get a set.
Please let Ross know if you want to take advantage of this offer and we will make arrangements with ATCO for the necessary number of copies to be available at the event.
Abstract
Sedimentary basins in Canada’s east coast offshore are rich oil and gas hunting grounds; a long history of exploration and development stretches back to the earliest seismic refraction surveys in the 1950s, and even earlier if one considers early oil wells on the western coast of Newfoundland.
While exploration has been wide-ranging, production today comes only from the oil-prone Jeanne d’Arc Basin on the Grand Banks, more than 300 km east of St. John’s. The Hibernia discovery in 1979 took 18 years to put on stream, and was followed by major developments at White Rose, Terra Nova and Hebron. Oil discoveries a little further offshore in the Flemish Pass Basin await final investment development decisions over the next few years.
Exploration on the Labrador Shelf north of the Grand Banks and the Scotian Shelf to the south proved those areas to be gas-prone. Gas discoveries near Sable Island on the Scotian Shelf were developed in the 1990s, but were depleted by 2018 after more than 2 TCF of gas was delivered. The more remote and physically challenging Labrador Shelf gas discoveries of the 1970s and 80s have not been developed, but tremendous potential remains if a business case can be made for development.
Political and regulatory issues will determine the future of oil and gas in the Eastern Canada offshore. In addition to oil, natural gas potential is enormous and well-positioned for LNG to serve the ravenous European market, but will require federal as well as provincial support to move ahead.
Luncheon Speaker Biography
Brad J. Hayes, PhD, P.Geo
Brad Hayes is President of Petrel Robertson Consulting Ltd., a geoscience and engineering consulting firm advising clients working in oil and gas, helium and lithium exploration, carbon capture and storage, geothermal energy and water resource management.
Brad holds a PhD in geology from the University of Alberta, and has 40 years of diverse experience applying subsurface geoscience in resource industries. He is a Past-President of the Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists, a member of the Energy Resources Technical Advisory Committee for Geoscience BC, Outreach Director for the Canadian Society for Evolving Energy and an Adjunct Professor in the University of Alberta Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
Brad led PRCL in more than 20 years of technical support for East Coast oil and gas exploration and development ventures, including G&G analysis at Hibernia for Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation.
Future Events
Next luncheon June 12, 2024
speaker Bob Bott, details to be announced
Fall luncheons
- September 25, 2024
- October 30, 2024
- November 27, 2024
2024's Past Events
Annual General Meeting at Petroleum Club - 4:oo p.m. March 27, 2024
Guest speaker Dr. Sabrina Peric, Associate
Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Archeology at the University of Calgary
Sabrina has been conducting research on Dr. Ted Link, one of the giants of Canadian petroleum
history. Link is credited with the discovery of the Norman Wells Field in the Northwest Territories
in 1920 and was Imperial Oil’s Chief Geologist when Leduc was discovered in 1947. Between
those dates, Link was very active in trying to pull together the geological history of Western
Canada.
February 28, 2024: Jaremko Jottings - by David Finch
Gordon Jaremko changed the way people see the petroleum industry. And he recorded the
story of oil with unique intelligence, insights, passion and clever wit. David Finch, also a
graduate of the University of Calgary history department with an MA in History - Gordon's was
in 1973 - will discuss several aspects of the bibliography of Jaremko. As a journalist, Gordon
was also a philosopher, social historian, political commentator and so much more. While other
newspaper hacks fell into the easy pattern of writing daily articles on deadline based on little
more than a news release from a company flack, Gordon insisted on slogging through the
trenches. He was always downtown in the middle of the action - in Edmonton and Ottawa and
Calgary - notebook in hand, jotting down quotes and facts in his own self-styled shorthand.
His sly, straight thin-lipped smile always kept the person he was interviewing engaged, and
talking, even revealing more than they had intended. Using excerpts from Gordon's writings,
this presentation will cover topics from the five decades of Gordon's writing career.
Past events, including summaries of speakers' presentations, are recorded
in Archives newsletters.
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