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Sean Kelly, C-NLOPB
In December, the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (CNLOPB) completed its reassessment of reserve and resource estimates at the Terra Nova field.
Staff at the federal provincial-regulator crunched data acquired from drilling and production activities at the field. Their analysis resulted in Terra Nova’s numbers spiking upward. The board’s estimate of proven and probable oil reserves, for example, jumped to 419-million barrels from 354-million.
Such reassessments are part of the CNLOPB’s mandate, according to spokesman Sean Kelly, and are carried out on an ongoing basis. “Several factors influence the Board’s decision to reassess reserve and resource estimates,” Kelly noted. “For example, if the Board receives a development plan or a development plan amendment application, we may reassess these numbers to ensure the board has recent information upon which to base its decisions.”
“Our mandate includes ensuring development plans provide for the economic recovery of petroleum resources. We may also reassess the numbers on the basis of new data received from seismic, drilling and/or production activity that could impact the original assessments. We learn more about the wells and the reservoir through these activities.”
The regulator’s assessments are done in-house, independent of industry. They may differ from the numbers put out by operators, Kelly said, depending on the interpretation of the data.
The board is in charge of making sure that the oil companies’ depletion schemes are as effective as possible, and petroleum recovery is maximized. “It is important for the board, as a regulator, to conduct its own interpretation of the data and develop its own assessment of reserves/resources, rather than rely on some other party’s interpretation of the data,” Kelly noted.
He said the board is currently working on the West White Rose development plan amendment. In November 2009, Husky Energy announced new discoveries in the so-called Hibernia formation at the White Rose field.
Kelly said Husky, as of late January, had yet to file documents with the board to indicate their assessment of those discoveries. The CNLOPB could ultimately decide to do a reassessment of reserves and resources there, just as it could at all fields.
