INUVIK
Community consultations began last week in the Beaufort-Delta region surrounding Imperial Oil Resources Ventures Ltd. proposed Beaufort Sea deep-water well exploration project.

Boats towing streamers which record seismic data during Imperial Oil Ltd.'s 2008 seismic acquisition on the Ajurak block, in the Beaufort Sea. Community consultations related to Imperial's deep sea oil exploration program are underway in the Inuvik region. - photo courtesy of Imperial Oil Ltd.

The six community visits, organized by the environmental impact review board, are designed to further define the project’s terms of reference for subsequent environmental filings. The last one was scheduled for the evening of March 31 in Aklavik.

A 455-page pre-regulatory document, The Beaufort Sea Exploration Joint Venture Drilling Program, has been submitted to the Inuvialuit Environmental Impact Screening Committee (EISC), and the National Energy Board (NEB).

The Beaufort Sea exploration project, 125 km off-shore of Tuktoyaktuk, is a joint proposal between BP Exploration Operating Company, ExxonMobil Canada ltd. and Imperial.

The next two years are important for the project. Assuming favourable market conditions, environmental approval, and successful impact benefit plans, Imperial could begin to ramp up activity in the region as early as 2016.

Before then, the proposal would have to clear a number of environmental reviews, including the one currently before the Inuvialuit EISC.

“The Inuvialiut have strong representation on the environmental review board,” said Nellie Cournoyea, Chair and CEO of the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC).

Long experience with oil and gas companies in the region means the IRC is already considering how to make the application process as efficient as possible, both for the proponent and for the region.

“We want to see (the application process) streamlined,” Cournoyea said.

“Not by taking shortcuts, but streamlined. The next step after this (is to) put it together so that we don’t have multiple hearings on the same subject of off-shore drilling.”

Even with approvals in hand, it could take up to four years of preliminary work -- including sourcing or building ice-breakers -- before the company would ready to being drilling an exploratory deep-water well.

The drilling season is short in the Beaufort. It could take three seasons of drilling before reaching target depths.

After exploration, data would be analyzed, further investment decisions made and more exploration may be required.

Realistically, a production well is not on the horizon until the middle of the next decade.

A 2013 document prepared for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada shows oil resource potential in the explored Beaufort Delta to stand at 1 to 1.2 billion barrels of discovered recoverable oil resources, with estimates for total recoverable oil resources approaching 10.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil resources in the region.

“It’s oil and gas up here,” Cournoyea said. “We don’t have any mining to talk about. We’ve been involved with the oil and gas industry since the early 70s.”

“We keep a very close eye on it."