Canada's Natural Gas Resources—Assessment Procedures

Vic Mroszczak
Canadian Gas Potential Committee, Calgary, AB

The Canadian Gas Potential Committee (CGPC) is a volunteer group of senior exploration geoscientists who prepare rational play-based estimates of the undiscovered volumes of natural gas in Canada's sedimentary basins on a regular basis. Canada wide assessments, used by industry and governments, were released by the Committee in 1997 and 2001. Discovery process and statistical methods, combined with a rigorous peer review process involving knowledgeable government and industry professionals, are critical components of the Committee's procedure.

An introduction to the new geo-statistical methodology adopted by the Committee will be provided. This program replaces Petrimes as the Committee's primary assessment tool for assessing established exploration plays. Several examples of results using the new program on selected plays in the WCSB and frontier basins will be presented. The number and size class of the undiscovered pools/fields in established exploration plays are included in the estimates made by the Committee.

The forthcoming 2005 Report by the Committee will quantify the remaining gas resources in Canada with emphasis on the increasing need for frontier and non-conventional gas sources, particularly coal bed methane (CBM), to meet Canada's growing energy demands.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90039©2005 AAPG Calgary, Alberta, June 16-19, 2005