Southwestern Energy will undertake a $47m exploration programme in New Brunswick, Canada, after winning exploration bids.
The three-year exploration will take place over an area covering 1,018,000 hectares in New Brunswick, the company said in statement.
Southwestern Energy chief executive officer Steve Mueller said that the firm has identified a large area on the Maritimes Basin that is anticipated to have oil and natural gas prospects.
"There is a significant amount of data yet to be collected in order to confirm its economic merit, but if our testing yields positive results, we expect that our activity in the area could increase substantially over the next several years," Mueller said.
Twitter