| Title | Hydrocarbon resource assessment of Hudson Bay, northern Canada |
| Download | Downloads |
| |
| Licence | Please note the adoption of the Open Government Licence - Canada
supersedes any previous licences. |
| Author | Dewing, K E ;
Lister, C J; Kung, L E; Atkinson, E A; King, H M; Kalejaiye, A M; Krakowka, A |
| Source | Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 8989, 2023, 37 pages, https://doi.org/10.4095/332028  Open Access |
| Image |  |
| Year | 2023 |
| Publisher | Natural Resources Canada |
| Document | open file |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | digital; on-line |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | Ontario; Quebec; Nunavut; Manitoba |
| NTS | 33; 43; 34; 44; 54; 35; 45; 55 |
| Area | Hudson Bay |
| Lat/Long WENS | -96.0000 -68.0000 65.0000 50.0000 |
| Subjects | fossil fuels; marine geology; hydrocarbons; hydrocarbon potential; petroleum resources; conservation; sedimentary basins; Hudson Basin; Marine conservation areas |
| Illustrations | tables; location maps; graphs; cross-sections, stratigraphic |
| Program | Marine Conservation Targets [MCT] |
| Released | 2023 08 04 |
| Abstract | (unpublished)
A revised qualitative assessment of the hydrocarbon resource potential is presented for the Hudson Bay sedimentary basin that underlies Hudson Bay and adjacent onshore areas of
Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. The Hudson Basin is a large intracratonic sedimentary basin that preserves dominantly Ordovician to Devonian aged limestone and evaporite strata. Maximum preserved sediment thickness is about 2.5 km. Source rock is the
petroleum system element that has the lowest chance of success; the potential source rock is thin, may be discontinuous, and the thin sedimentary cover may not have been sufficient to achieve the temperatures required to generate and expel oil from a
source rock over much of the basin. The highest potential is in the center of the basin, where the hydrocarbon potential is considered ‘Medium’. Hydrocarbon potential decreases towards the edges of the basin due to fewer plays being present, and
thinner strata reduce the chance of oil generation and expulsion. Quantitative hydrocarbon assessment considers seven plays. Input parameters for field size and field density (per unit area) are based on analog Michigan, Williston, and Illinois
intracratonic sedimentary basins that are about the same age and that had similar depositional settings to Hudson Basin. Basin-wide play and local prospect chances of success were assigned based on local geological conditions in Hudson Bay. Each of
the seven plays were analyzed in Rose and Associates PlayRA software, which performs a Monte Carlo simulation using the local chance of success matrix and field size and prospect numbers estimated from analog basins. Hudson sedimentary basin has a
mean estimate of 67.3 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent and a 10% chance of having 202.2 or more million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. The mean chance for the largest expected pool is about 15 million recoverable barrels of oil
equivalent (MMBOE), and there is only a 10% chance of there being a field larger than 23.2 MMBOE recoverable. The small expected field sizes are based on the large analog data set from Michigan, Williston and Illinois basins, and are due to the
geological conditions that create the traps. The small size of the largest expected field, the low chance of exploration success, and the small overall resource make it unlikely that there are any economically recoverable hydrocarbons in the Hudson
Basin in the foreseeable future. The Southampton Island area of interest includes 93 087 km2 of nearshore waters around Southampton Island and Chesterfield Inlet in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. Of the total resource estimated for Hudson Bay, 14
million barrels are apportioned to the Southampton Island Area of Interest. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
This report provides an estimate of the amount of oil or gas that might be present in the Hudson Bay sedimentary basin. The average estimate is 67.3
million barrels of oil in Hudson Bay. The small size of the largest expected field, the low chance of exploration success, and the small overall resource make it unlikely that there are any economically recoverable hydrocarbons in the Hudson Basin in
the foreseeable future. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 332028 |
|
|