Calgary company ready to drill in Hudson Bay area

The Hudson Bay area is open for drilling to find oil shale after a Calgary-based company dropped millions for exploration permits.

One of Canshale’s explorations has been dubbed the “Golden Plain Project,” which is a play on the colour of the crops in the canola-rich area.

It differs from the Pasquia Hills, where oil shale deposits have been identified and explored.

While both are near Hudson Bay, the company wanted to differentiate the two projects because of their geographic differences, said the Canshale’s President and CEO Chris Hopkins.

The Golden Plain region is on Prairie land as opposed to hill. This means the oil shale resource is closer to the surface.

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The geography and potential of the area is well-known to Hopkins. His knowledge dates back over a decade since a company he was previously involved with did exploration out by Hudson Bay.

The oil shale the company will be drilling for does not contain oil since oil is formed in shale that is deeper down in the earth.

However, this type of shale contains a waxy, oil-like substance called kerogen.

“It’s important because in one case it is the source of oil in the conventional sense and in another case it’s the source of this kerogen which can be manufactured into oil,” Hopkins explained.

Canshale is not in the business of doing that manufacturing. As an exploration company, it uses small drilling rigs to find and delineate the resource.

Hopkins anticipates the company spending about five years doing this exploration.

He explained what kind of effect this project could have overall in the Hudson Bay area.

“In the short term we conduct exploration work and there’s the economic impact of that and in the long term we hope to see the resource being developed and then the economic spin off from that development activity.”

Development will take quite some time but could consist of mining the oil shale in a manner similar to coal mines.

Canshale isn’t financially capable of that kind of development, so a major investor would be necessary for this to happen.

claskowski@panow.com

On Twitter: @chelsealaskowsk