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New oil deposit discovered west of Hudson Bay

Feb 11, 2016 | 4:59 PM

Over five years of testing and exploration has paid off for Vancouver based company Saturn Minerals.

They’ve discovered oil in a section of land west of Hudson Bay.

“We’re looking at about eight metres of potential pay zone,” CEO Stan Szary said.

In 2008, the company was in the area looking for coal. Much to their surprise, crews were getting indications that there may be a strong petroleum deposit deep down in the ground.

“One chunk of coal we had from a coal hole was analyzed (and showed signs) that oil had passed through it,” Szary said

The company embarked on several years of seismic and geological testing before finally committing to drill. To obtain a quality sample, crews would need to drill down 1,000 metres. Unfortunately, the drill got stuck at the halfway mark.

“We went back to our shareholder base and we raised a bit more money because we were determined to try again,” Szary said.

The drilling team would give it a second attempt last month and encountered the same problem.

“We got down to about 580 metres and it was just too difficult so we decided to re-drill it one more time,” Szary said.

The third try would prove successful and the company was able to confirm what they had suspected; there was oil in the ground.

Szary said they’ve sent the samples away to the lab to be tested and lab results are expected by early next week. The next step will more than likely be more drilling.

“It’s a pretty big land pact. It’s 120,000 acres just on Bannock Creek and we haven’t looked at 80 per cent of it, really,” Szary said.

Hudson Bay Mayor Elvina Rumak said the town is very excited about the potential of this discovery.

“We’ve been patiently waiting for something to break the ice,” she said. 

Rumak said the town will limit their enthusiasm until further details emerge.

 

nmaxwell@panow.com

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell