Noel, Nova Scotia - A Media Coop article of one year ago corrected the impression that the 2007 to 2009 shale gas exploration program gave up because it did not find gas.
Nova Scotia Fracking Ground Zero: Kennetcook explains how the program hit the economic wall with the bursting of the hyper-inflated shale gas fracking bubble; and that if the moratorium on fracking was lifted the industry is expected to pick up where Triangle Petroleum's three fracked wells left off.
The article refers to the Triangle Petroleum June 2008 Development Plan and describes the intensity of polluting industial infrastructure that the communities would find themselves in the middle of.
Glib confirmation of the bullseye on those communities now comes from the Review of Hydraulic Fracturing piloted by David Wheeler. The first three discussion papers issued by the Review have been bully pulpits for the industry putting its best foot forward. Each of those papers includes a pro forma statement that the paper is only part of the story - for example, that the potential costs and risks will be discussed in later discussion papers.
The Review's complete panel of experts is a broad cross section of academics. But the key 'technical expert' positions are held by the industry people who have written the first papers. They have more resources to draw on and have been gifted with the privileged 'first to present' position, uncluttered by comparisons that might give the whole picture of full costs and benefits analysis.
It is the just-issued second discussion paper that points right at the Kennetcook area. In The Potential Oil and Gas Resource Base in Nova Scotia Accessible by Hydraulic Fracturing we read the rather antiseptic lines that:
"Corridor Resources’ success in New Brunswick is focusing industry’s attention on the nearest analogues. Thus, the correlative shales in basins closest to New Brunswick, such as the Horton Bluff shales in the Windsor-Kennetcook Basin, are attracting the most attention and activity.
Reservoirs of the Horton Group, and particularly the medial shale formations, will attract the most industry interest because of large assessed gas in place volumes, and….being relatively close to existing production in New Brunswick and having experienced exploratory activity already, would likely be the focus of any unconventional exploration activity in the foreseeable future. Most existing pipeline infrastructure is close to these basins."
