CNLOPB announces 2012 call for bids on offshore parcels #nlpoli

From the offshore regulatory board:

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) announced today the details of a Call for Bids in the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area. Call for Bids NL12-01 (Area "C" – Laurentian Sub-basin) will consist of six parcels, which comprise 1,589,738 hectares.

Interested parties will have until 4:00 p.m. on November 1, 2012 to submit sealed bids for parcels offered in Call for Bids NL12-01. The sole criterion for selecting winning bids will be the total amount of money the bidder commits to spend on exploration of the respective parcel during Period I (the first period of a nine-year licence). The
minimum bid for each parcel offered is $1,000,000.

The C-NLOPB hereby wishes to inform prospective bidders for parcels NL12-01-01, NL12-01-02 and NL12-01-04 (these parcels are adjacent to the French Exclusive Zone around the islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon,
France) that it has been advised by the Government of Canada that on May 17, 2005, the Government of Canada and the Government of the French Republic signed the Agreement between the Government of Canada and the
Government of the French Republic relating to the Exploration and Exploitation of Transboundary Hydrocarbon Fields (the Agreement). 

The Agreement provides a framework for the conservation and management of hydrocarbon resources in fields straddling the maritime boundary between the two countries.  The Agreement will enter into force on the date on which the Government of Canada and the Government of the French Republic have informed each other that all necessary internal requirements have been fulfilled. While France has ratified the Agreement, Canada is putting in place the domestic arrangements to allow it to proceed with its ratification process.

As a result, the Government of Canada has advised the C-NLOPB that if the Agreement enters into force prior to or during the term of a licence covering any of the above parcels, this necessarily will result in the application of additional terms and conditions for those parcels,
through legislation, regulations, amendments to licences or otherwise, in order to ensure compliance with the Agreement.

The C-NLOPB recommends to prospective bidders that they consult the text of the Agreement, which is available from the C-NLOPB upon request to information@cnlopb.nl.ca.

This Call for Bids contains provisions for rentals during the term of an exploration licence and during the term of any resulting significant discovery licence. This Call for Bids contains a sample exploration licence which incorporates a sample significant discovery licence.

These areas have been previously assessed to identify any mitigative measures that may be required in relation to exploration activity on these parcels.

Subject to Ministerial approval, successful bidders will be issued an exploration licence for a term of nine years; however, during Period I a well must be spudded to validate the licence for the full nine-year term.

Notification of any changes made to this Call for Bids will be posted to the C-NLOPB's website.

For a complete copy of the text of the Call for Bids, visit the C-NLOPB website at www.cnlopb.nl.ca.

- srbp -

* paragraphing changed for online legibility.  SRBP added two links related to the Canada-France agreement on transboundary hydrocarbon resources

New gas find offshore Israel

Funny the things that slip by.

Over Christmas the Globe and Mail ran a story on new oil and natural gas finds in Israel.  The twenty trillion cubic feet of natural gas in one set of offshore finds will reshape the Middle East and more energy finds could reshape global energy supplies.

Estimated to contain 16 trillion cubic feet of gas – equivalent to more than a quarter of Canada’s proven reserves and enough to meet Israel’s domestic demand for 100 years – the Leviathan field is believed to be the largest such deep-water gas discovery in a decade.

The find actually dates from  June 2010 as a story in the Jerusalem Post shows.

In January 2009, the discovery of the natural-gas field 90 kilometers offshore from Haifa, known as Tamar, in which Noble Energy has a 36% working interest, was made by the US-Israel consortium including the Delek Group, through its subsidiaries Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration, Isramco Negev 2, Dor Gas Exploration. Tamar is the largest exploration discovery in Noble Energy’s history, which last year also discovered a natural-gas field at Dalit with gas reserves estimated at 500 billion cubic feet.

“The Leviathan exploration has the potential of being twice the size of Tamar, which was the largest gas discovery globally in 2009,” Richard Gussow, a research analyst at Deutsche Bank, said Thursday.

In addition, there’s been a major oil discovery onshore as well of a field roughly the size of Hibernia with additional prospects offshore.

- srbp -

EnCana approves $700 million Deep Panuke gas project

CALGARY, Alberta, Oct 25 (Reuters) - EnCana Corp (ECA.TO) will build its own pipeline to ship gas to shore from its C$700 million ($721 million) Deep Panuke gas project off Nova Scotia rather than use the line from the nearby Sable project, an EnCana spokesman said.

EnCana had been weighing the two options since before it restarted regulatory proceedings early this year for the Atlantic Canada gas development.

"Each of the parties (EnCana and the Sable partners) looked at it. It was agreed that technical, commercial and operational circumstances were not something we could come to an agreement on. It didn't have optimal benefits for both," EnCana spokesman Alan Boras said.

EnCana gave the corporate green light on Thursday to Deep Panuke, which will be the first new project off the coast of Nova Scotia since Sable was developed in the 1990s.

It is due to start producing 200 million to 300 million cubic feet of gas a day in 2010.

The cost of building the pipeline to Goldsboro, Nova Scotia, from the gas field, 250 km (155 miles) southeast of Halifax, is included in the overall C$700 million capital budget, Boras said.

Sable partners Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and Royal Dutch Shell have their combined 18 % interest in the Deep Panuke project on the auction block.

-srbp-