A natural gas well in northeastern British Columbia is producingas much as 100 MMcf/d, which would make it one of the top 10onshore discoveries in Canadian history, Murphy Oil Corp. reportedyesterday. The El Dorado, AR-based producer boosted its interest inthe play to 63% last November after acquiring Calgary’s Beau CanadaExploration Ltd. Houston-based partner Apache Corp. holds a 37%interest.

Because of industry regulations, production details from theA-97-H exploratory well were kept confidential until Feb. 1. It islocated about 60 miles (100 kilometers) north of Fort St. John, ahotbed of Canadian exploration in the past year.

“This is a significant well,” said Harvey Doerr, president ofMurphy Oil’s Canadian office. “It can flow at 100 MMcf/d, but themain restriction for it to be able to flow at that level is theallowable limit set by the government, which is currently 46million.”

Murphy and Apache won’t set a daily production rate for the welluntil they define the reservoir and obtain regulatory approval tobuild more pipeline capacity. Doerr said several more wells wouldneed to be drilled in the area before decisions are finalized.

The next step is a meeting with Canada’s National Energy Board(NEB) on Feb. 15 for approval to build a pipeline that wouldconnect the reserves to the TransCanada PipeLines Ltd. system inAlberta. Completion of that line would take about a month.

Last November, the NEB reported that Canada’s demand growth hasoutpaced supply growth for natural gas, but gas producers were”responding to the current high price environment with aggressivedrilling programs.” NEB predicted that recent developments would relaxthe supply crunch, with more than 400 MMcf/d from Sable Islandproduction and 250 MMcf/d from the Fort Liard area, where Chevron hasseveral producing wells (see Daily GPI, Nov. 3, 2000).

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