The Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP) is a consortium based in Halifax,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

which explores for and produced

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

near

Sable Island Sable Island (french: île de Sable, literally "island of sand") is a small Canadian island situated southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and about southeast of the closest point of mainland Nova Scotia in the North Atlantic Ocean. The island ...

on the edge of the

n continental shelf in eastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. SOEP produced between 400 and of natural gas and of

natural gas liquids Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natur ...

daily until 2019. The first tier was completed in 1999 resulting in the development of the Thebaud, North Triumph, and Venture natural gas fields.

History

In 1979 the drill rig ''Gulftide'' struck success and the Venture field was discovered. At the time, the cost of developing the gas field proved prohibitive. Extreme

North Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

weather and low natural gas prices were blamed. In 1995, improvements in drilling technology along with an increase in natural gas prices made recovering the gas economy allowing SOEP to emerge. In January ground was broken for the Goldboro gas plant. In November, the ''Galaxy II'' rig spuds the first production well at the Thebaud field. The Thebaud platform and wellhead were installed in August 1999. In September, the sub-sea pipeline, linking the Sable Island fields to Goldboro gas plant 225 km (140 mi) away, was completed. In November, construction of the fractionation plant and gas plant were completed and the first natural gas was recovered a month later offshore. First gas shipped to market in January 2000.

Geology

The Venture Gas Field was discovered in 1979 when the Venture D-23 well was drilled and is located a few miles off the east end of

on the

Scotian Shelf The Scotian Shelf is a geological formation, part of the Continental shelf, located southwest of Nova Scotia, Canada. It covers an area of , is long and ranges in width from . It has an average depth of . The Scotian Shelf contains the ecological ...

in 12–20 m of water.Drummond, K.J., 1992, Geology of Venture, a Geo-pressured Gas Field, Offshore Nova Scotia, in ''Giant Oil and Gas Fields of the Decade, 1978-1988'', AAPG 54, Halbouty, M.T., editor, Tulsa: American Association of Petroleum Geologists, The

structural trap In petroleum geology, a trap is a geological structure affecting the reservoir rock and caprock of a petroleum system allowing the accumulation of hydrocarbons in a reservoir. Traps can be of two types: stratigraphic or structural. Structural trap ...

consists of an east-west trending

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

bounded on the north by a fault, with gas occurring in multiple Upper

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

to Lower

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

reservoirs 1600 m thick at depths from 4 to 6 km.

Fields

The fields of SOEP are being developed in two stage, with the cost of development of an estimated field life of 25 years. The Thebaud, North Triumph, and Venture were developed in the first stage and completed in 1999. The first Phase II platform, Alma, came onstream in late 2003 while production from South Venture, the second field began late in 2004. Due to the long exploit of the rig it has been closed for maintenance and repairs which are currently on going.

Facilities

Offshore *Thebaud Processing Facility *Venture platform *North Triumph platform *Alma Facilities *South Venture platform Onshore *Goldboro Gas Plant ( Goldboro, Guysborough County) *Point Tupper

Fractionation Fractionation is a separation process in which a certain quantity of a mixture (of gases, solids, liquids, enzymes, or isotopes, or a suspension) is divided during a phase transition, into a number of smaller quantities (fractions) in which the ...

Plant ( Point Tupper,

Richmond County Richmond County may refer to places: Australia *Richmond County, New South Wales, a cadastral division Canada *Richmond County, Nova Scotia United Kingdom *Richmondshire, the original Richmond County in Yorkshire, England United States ...

)

Consortium partners

* ExxonMobil Canada Properties Limited * Shell Canada Limited * Imperial Oil * Mosbacher Operating Limited
Cona Resources Ltd.

References

External links

SOEP homepage

Information on SOEP at offshore-technology.com

Canada - Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board

Map of Canadian Oil and gas infrastructure
{{Coord, 43, 57, 0, N, 59, 54, 57, W, display=title, scale:10000_region:CA-NS Natural gas fields in Canada Energy in Nova Scotia Companies based in Halifax, Nova Scotia Guysborough County, Nova Scotia Richmond County, Nova Scotia ExxonMobil oil and gas fields Sable Island