Squatex discovers gas in Lower St Lawrence area

Oil and gas exploration company Ressources et Energie Squatex has discovered a large quantity of conventional natural gas in the Lower St Lawrence area in Canada.

The company found porous dolomitised limestone zones of hydrothermal origin containing gas (89% methane) in a core hole Massé No.1 that reached 1874m in the Mitis River area, south of Rimouski.

The discovery was made while the company was carrying a stratigraphic coring programme to evaluate the oil and gas potential of its licences.

The core hole was aimed to test a series of seismic amplitude vs offset (AVO) anomalies indicating the possibility of the presence of fluids and/or porous reservoir rocks that are located near thrusted zones.

Squatex noted that the cores exhibit a 10m thick zone containing a measured porosity which locally reaches 20.8% with a permeability of 1,624mD.

The hole was cemented from one end to another to prevent the fluids at depth coming in contact with the surface formations.

Squatex conducted the preliminary geophysical interpretation which indicates that the prospective zone of AVO anomalies can extend over a surface of more than 20km².

Various options are currently being evaluated by the company to finance the continuation of geoscientific work, which includes recording new seismic lines, AVO processing existing lines and carrying out the drilling of confirmation wells on the structure to determine its potential.