(K'JIPUKTUK), HALIFAX - These days, the value of any oil project is measured by the barrel. But when it comes to Old Harry, the number of barrels is all over the map.
The Old Harry prospect is a geological formation in the Gulf of St Lawrence, 80 km off Newfoundland's west coast and 460 metres underwater. If oil and gas development were to go ahead at Old Harry, it would be the first project of its kind in the Gulf. Without marrying drill-bit to seabed, it’s impossible to know for certain how much oil’s hiding under the surface, if any, but this hasn’t stopped industry, investment firms or government from making their best guesses.
Sylvain Archambault spearheads the St Lawrence Coalition, an organization pushing for a moratorium on oil and gas development in the Gulf of St Lawrence. He’s been keeping an eye on these best guesses from industry and government…and he spotted a trend. Year after year, different groups have been making increasingly larger claims about the amount of oil waiting to be extracted from Old Harry, their claims often unsupported by evidence.
“I saw a few of the plain wrong figures,” said Archambault, “so I wanted to debunk this supposedly huge potential [at Old Harry].”
To do this, Archambault listed the oil potential claims in chronological order. The first claim on his list was made by the Geological Survey of Canada in 2009, which estimated there are approximately 1.5 billion barrels worth of oil in the entire southern Gulf of St Lawrence (which includes Old Harry). Archambault considers this estimate to be credible and uses it for his own estimation of Old Harry.
“I feel safe to personally say that for strictly Old Harry, it would be less than 1 billion [barrels]," said Archambault.
The second guess on Archambault’s list comes from Corridor Resources, the Halifax based oil and gas company which presently holds the lease for drilling at Old Harry. In 2010, its president Phillip Knoll made his own best guess.
“The seismic work done on [Old Harry] indicates that it’s a potentially huge resource,” said Knoll, “and others who have looked at this have guestimated that it could hold…a billion barrels plus of oil.”
So, in only a year, the oil potential of Old Harry went from fewer than one billion barrels to over a billion. It was another two years before the next great leap was made. Jennings Capital, an investment firm which keeps track of Corridor Resources, put the oil potential of Old Harry at upwards of two billion barrels, earning themselves a spot on Archambault’s list. Their claim was made in early 2012.
The deal was sealed shortly thereafter in May of 2012, when Knoll left his conservative estimate of over a billion barrels behind and instead described Old Harry as a “multi-billion barrel oil reserve.”
Only a month afterward, another investment firm working with Corridor Resources, Macquarie Tristone, put the oil potential of Old Harry at 5 billion barrels. They were left behind by an economist with the Montreal Economic Institute later in 2012, who released a report claiming Old Harry’s oil potential to be as high as 6 billion.
The final “best guess” on Archambault’s list came from the Quebec Department of Natural Resources in 2013, which put the total oil potential of the Old Harry prospect at a staggering 10 billion barrels.
Since 2009, the oil potential of the Old Harry prospect has apparently increased tenfold without further study.
Archambault said all claims beyond the original estimate, given by the Geological Survey of Canada, were exaggerations and are not based on scientific evidence. Archambault does not believe these exaggerated claims were intentional lies, only a result of wishful thinking run wild. Some of the later claims, from the Montreal Economic Institute and Quebec’s Department of Natural Resources, he said were made by individuals who had no business making them.
Although shown to be false, Archambault said these exaggerated claims have left their impression on the public, investors and governments with a stake in the Old Harry prospect, giving the impression there’s more potential at Old Harry than exists. He’s concerned these poor guesses from industry, investment firms and government departments will lead to hasty decisions regarding the future of the Gulf and its misrepresented resources.
