Canada''s East Coast: the New Super Petroleum Province
Authors: McMillan N.J. 
Published: March 2010

Exploration drilling, preceded by extensive airborne magnetometer and marine seismic surveys has been underway on the frontier of Eastern Canada since 1965. The frontier extends from the southwestern Scotian Shelf to northern Ellesmere Island a distance exceeding 6000 kilometres. The five main areas where exploration has been focused are:Scotain Shelf-mainly Sable Basin.Grand Banks.Labrador Shelf-mainly restricted to the Erik Graben.Shelf of southern Baffin Island in northern Labrador Sea.Lancaster Sound-Baffin Bay.

One oil show and several gas discoveries have been made in Cretaceous sands on the Scotian Shelf all in the Sable Basin during a campaign of 71 holes.

The major discovery of oil Hibernia with recoverable reserves of 2 billion barrels, is in Jurassic Cretaceous sands of the Jeanne d’ Are Basin on the Grand Banks. Oil was recovered on test from Ben Nevis, South Tempest and Hebron. In all, 54 tests have been completed on the Grand Banks.

Off Labrador, 22 wells have been drilled and significant gas discoveries have been made on 5 different structures in at least four different ages of rock Ordovician, Carboniferous, Lower Cretaceous and Paleocene. In addition, an oil show was found in the Lower Cretaceous of North Leif. A large gas discovery was made at Hekja south of Baffin Island in two tries by industry. Drilling has not been attempted in Lancaster Sound Baffin Bay, although numerous attractive structures are delineated. In addition the only marine oilseep in offshore Eastern Canada is situated off Scott Inlet, Baffin Island.

This frontier provides a varied hunting ground salt diapirs and reefs off Nova Scotia; salt diapirs and growth structures on the edges of the Grand Banks; and horsts, porous outliers, stratigraphic traps and growth structures off Labrador, southern Baffin Island and in Baffin Bay.

The minimum expected recoverable reserves already established are 14 Tcf of gas and 2 billion barrels of oil.

The initiation of basin formation ranged from Late Triassic to Early Cretaceous-the time when Africa, Greenland and North America were separating.

Introduction

Exploration for petroleum was initiated off the east coast of Canada in 1959 by Mobil (then Socony Vacuum) in the Sable Island area. Since then, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of reflection seismic have been shot in addition to some refraction.

First interpretations of the geology were supported by vast amounts of airborne magnetometer surveys and marine gravity. Coastal plain sediments along Canada's coast have been tested by 147 holes. Several other wildcats have investigated the "Carboniferous" Basin westward of the landward zero limit of the Mesozoic-Cenozoic wedge of sediments.

The area of sedimentary fill is enormous. In Canadian waters, it extends uninterrupted from the southwestern part of the Nova Scotian Shelf along the coast to Ellesmere Island a distance of 6000 kilometres. If 1000 metres water-depth is chosen as an outer limit for the shelves, the width ranges from 60 to 600 kilometres (Fig. 1). There is no question that this expanse is considered to be prospective. Many "basins" are currently the favoured grounds for exploration, whereas the arches and structurally monotonous areas are being shunned.