Results of core and petrophysical analyses from a well on Quebec’s Anticosti Island are “encouraging,” according to Corridor Resources Inc. and Petrolia Inc., which hold leases covering more than 1.5 million acres on the island.

Anticosti is underlain by the Macasty Shale, which the two companies characterized as “the lateral equivalent of the Utica Shale.”

Analysis of 27-meter core cut during a drilling program on the sparsely populated island last summer produced “positive indicators that the Macasty shale may be a potential tight oil-producing formation,” the companies said.

Schlumberger Canada calculated high hydrocarbon saturations (80%) and porosities (6% effective) in the Macasty Formation, with saturation and porosity declining in the overlying English Head Formation — positive indicators for the potential of significant oil in place within the Macasty shale — according to Corridor and Petroli.

Rocks in the Chaloupe No. 1 well should be within the early part of the mature oil window, they said. In addition, the average oil saturation (42%) and the total hydrocarbon saturation (plus gas) (47%) indicate a relatively high oil concentration. The desorbed gas content indicates a reasonably high gas-to-oil ratio that can assist in the potential resource recovery, and the mineralogy indicates that the rocks should be favorable for hydraulic fracturing, the companies said.

The Anticosti exploration program is at an early stage and more work is required to determine the potential for commercially viable resource recovery. While 19 of the 20 wells drilled on the island have intersected the Macasty shale, “the quality of those shale intersections has not been evaluated from a resource in place context,” they said.

Halifax-based junior explorer Corridor in September said three oil wells on the island had encountered “no significant reservoir potential” and had been abandoned.

Corridor saw its stock lose almost one-third of its value in a single day in December after announcing “unexpected and perplexing” results from a shale gas appraisal program in New Brunswick (see Shale Daily, Dec. 7, 2010).