Natural Resources committee  I wish I were asking the questions. I think that in a Canadian context we are part of a North American, or even world, energy security solution, because I just don’t see how Canada has an energy security problem with abundant hydro resources, abundant oil, and abundant natural gas.

Natural Resources committee  It's in Calgary.

Natural Resources committee  I drilled my first well in Quebec in 1989. We were not successful then, and that's when I went to the Republic of Georgia, as I mentioned. I came back in 1998 to try again, with the idea that we could find unconventional resources. So we've been at this now in Quebec for 12 years.

Natural Resources committee  I know that at the Munk Centre the representative of Natural Resources Canada mentioned that they had done internal studies on the full life-cycle impact of natural gas on CO2 emissions, as an example. In terms of my personal awareness, that would be the only thing.

Natural Resources committee  Our company has published a fact sheet on water use in shale gas in Quebec. It is on our web page at Questerre.com. Just to give you a quick summary, we believe that in full-field development at approximately 400 wells per year, which is about the higher end of the range that has been predicted for Quebec, we would be quite a light industrial user of water, using approximately three billion litres of water per year, which would be less than car washes in Quebec, which would be maybe 20% of the water that the city of Quebec loses just through its leaky pipes.

Natural Resources committee  We expect that in full-field development we would recycle an amount approaching 100% of the water in Quebec. Just to help put that into some context, every shale has a different mineralogy and every shale therefore has a flowback water that will have a different mineral and chemical content.

Natural Resources committee  The British model for regulations or royalties...?

Natural Resources committee  British Columbia, yes. We have a project in northeast British Columbia, so we operate under the British Columbia model.

Natural Resources committee  Yes. I am going to turn that into two questions, if I might. The first is that in Quebec, while the law affecting hydrocarbons is part of the Mining Act, there are separate clauses in the legislation and something like 30 pages of regulations specific just to oil and gas. The model in Quebec has been designed for exploration because there really hasn’t been any production of any note.

Natural Resources committee  My name is Michael Binnion and I am the President of Questerre Energy Corporation. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chair and all members of the committee, for inviting me to speak to you today. Questerre's main focus is our Utica Shale Gas discovery in the St. Lawrence Lowlands of Quebec where we have been working since 1998.