Natural Resources Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You're doing it right now.

Again, just to be clear, because this committee has to write a report and recommendations to government to change the regulations to require companies—all of your competitors and Encana—to release information on all of the chemicals used in the fracturing process, I assume you would have no problem with that because it encourages greater public confidence in your operations?

[Richard Dunn]

Yes, absolutely, I agree with your comments on increasing public confidence and full disclosure.

As well, I note that the recently developed regulations in British Columbia—the Oil and Gas Activities Act just implemented within the last few months—in fact require this disclosure. So we support doing that, and we support the regulations that require it.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Encana claims that it conducted the world's biggest frac at what's called the 63-K pad. Is that correct?

[Richard Dunn]

I believe it was our partners, Apache. They made that claim a while back, yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Sorry, so it's your partners. You're obviously a principal in this project as well.

[Richard Dunn]

Yes, it's a fifty-fifty joint venture to develop properties up in the Horn River Basin, north of Fort Nelson.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You might not have this with you today, but can you submit to the committee later on how much water and how many chemicals were used in this fracturing?

[Richard Dunn]

Yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay. Thank you very much for that.

To our friends at Natural Resources Canada, the aquifer research project that's been going on for the last little while has the priority of looking at a total of 30 aquifers across the country. Are these priorities overlapped with where these natural gas plays are happening, or are they independent?

[Dr. David Boerner]

They overlap in some cases, but there are other places where they're independent.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, and to ask more specifically, this study was not initiated or conducted with any foresight of the potential of this unconventional natural gas exploration going on at the same time, was it?

[Dr. David Boerner]

No, there was a joint federal-provincial exercise a few years ago to try to come up with the key aquifers and then to attach a priority to the sequence of them. We have changed that priority a little bit. For example, we're not dealing with one that's close to the oil sands, because of concerns about whether there's an interaction between them.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So what we know so far—and I assume you saw the report out of the University of Toronto, Munk School, which raised some concerns—is that there are 30 priority aquifers and 12 have been completed so far. Are those numbers still current?

[Dr. David Boerner]

Yes.

We're still working on others, but 12 have been completed.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Do you have funding secured to complete the full 30?

[Dr. David Boerner]

Yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay.

A confusing point for me in trying to understand what the effect of a new industry is—and aquifers are at play in this question—is how we're doing the studies at the same time or after having drilled, in some places, many hundreds, if not thousands, of wells into those same areas as aquifers. Do you follow my concern?

One of the concerns of the public is that without baseline research, without a baseline understanding of what was there before an industrial project, it's impossible to consider what the effects of the project have been, because the company can say, “Well those conditions were pre-existing”, or “That contamination was naturally occurring”. We've seen this in the tar sands already, where they say, “The river already had those pollutants in it. It's not the operations of the oil companies.”

Do you see where the public might be confused why the federal government is doing this after all these plays have already been done?

[Dr. David Boerner]

Yes, I can certainly understand how the logic follows from that. From a scientific perspective, though, I would say there's a slightly different view.

We know that things like gas contamination of an aquifer occurs in places, and the cause of that can actually be determined scientifically. For example, we know that the degradation of organic material like bacteria produces methane, and when that happens near the surface, it actually has a signature in isotopes, carbon-14. If you have ever heard of carbon dating, that's how it works. If the methane contains carbon-14, it had to have been created near the surface. It couldn't possibly have been generated by a deep burial, and you can actually determine—

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay, so you feel confident proving it after the fact, that this methane contamination over there was from drilling, but this other methane over here was naturally occurring, just by the source of the methane?

[Dr. David Boerner]

I'm talking about the logic of it. We can't possibly know what's happened, because we had to have studied everything in advance. I'm saying there is actually a way of telling where methane came from, and some of the things that have been talked about, in terms of potential contamination near oil and gas developments, have actually been shown to be biologically determined or to have created methane from the near surface.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It's so-called naturally existing methane.

[Dr. David Boerner]

Right, not things from reservoirs.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

But we're also, as a government, open to the idea that contamination from the industrial process can happen as well, I assume. I know there are the two.

[Dr. David Boerner]

Right.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Just to go to Mr. Dunn for a moment regarding one of the concerns with Encana's projects right now, is there any requirement under the law to have a cumulative impact assessment? When an impact assessment is done for a single well, is there the potential of having many wells done around an aquifer or in a watershed without the cumulative effect being understood by the regulator?