Although 2015 drilling counts are the worst ever you only have to look back to 2006 to see 95 wells drilled in the province, or the 1990's when drilling averaged over 100 wells per year, or the nearly eight decade streak prior that averaged over 200 wells per year (with some years recording over 400 wells).

We can see looking at Figure 1 below that this decline in drilling starts began around 2008.  It therefore stands to reason that any opportunities existing then have not been fully explored or developed. 

Shallow opportunities in Ontario have always been inexpensive to access, so much so that in the 19th century a spring board drill was enough to get the job done.  Oil Springs and Petrolia pools were both discovered by inexpensive means and from a geologic point of view represent world class reservoirs, as has been noted by several presenters at the OPI annual conference.  Although exploration at this depth may be more exhausted than any other the low costs still make it an attractive opportunity.

Middle depths are famous for the large reef structures that exist mainly in Lambton county and in Huron county, to a lesser extent.  Although these structures have been thoroughly explored for using seismic, there are still other targets to be examined in this interval.  Users of the Library's free PxTools will probably know that the Library maintains a database of seismic line locations based on annual submissions.  Reef fever that brought intensive shooting of seismic lines to Lambton county was done to a somewhat lesser extent outside the county's borders meaning good areas for seismic data collection could still exist.  Another Ontario advantage is having the built in gridding, in terms of roadways, to facilitate collection of new seismic datasets.

Admittedly, the current state of Ontario's seismic databanks is a sore point from a data management point of view.  As Ontario's primary data provider we have heard repeatedly the difficulty with acquiring or accessing seismic data shot in the province.  Many of the original operators that shot seismic no longer exist in the province and the ownership and disposition of the data has become muddled over time.  One of the Library's main focuses in 2016 will be to improve our existing seismic database by allowing owners to register and market their data through our various online platforms.  Hopefully the Ontario Seismic Exchange marketplace will create a more efficient environment for the sale, trade, and flow of seismic data within the province.

It is often stated that half of Ontario's petroleum reserves may still be in place.  This claim should specifically be applied to the deeper units of Ontario as it originates from an Ordovician study published in 2005.  Returning to Figure 1, we can see that although drilling starts began to fall in earnest in 2008, it was back in 2002 when deep drilling started to slide.  Even following the release of a major study on the typically deep Ordovician units in 2005 exploration and development in this deeper horizon were both falling at a faster rate than exploration and development in shallower horizons.  The net result of this is that even with a major study released on the subject deep exploration and development has not been seriously exploited in over a decade now.  The results of the 2005 study are still very relevant today without much deep exploration, and opportunities at this level remain mostly intact from the early 2000's when deep drilling began to slide.

Although 2015 was one of the slowest in terms of drilling numbers it was one of the busiest at the Library in terms of data production.  Last year we partnered with several government departments and local operators to produce new public and private datasets.  Thanks to these partnerships our normal staff count of three was able to increase to eight full and part time workers all busy producing data for use by the industry.  This lead to a complete collection of all records scanned and available online, digital copies of many other record series were created (including the journals of R.B. Harkness), a geologic review of samples from 1,200 wells, new digital facility data, many new scanned maps available in PxTools.

The move to all digital documents has allowed operators to access more data than ever before from their offices and in the field.  As expected, foot traffic in the Library from file researchers has dropped significantly but an increase has been marked in the number of cores and cutting being viewed by explorers and researchers.

In 2016, we have already secured several partnerships that will allow us to continue producing and refining data to be used by the petroleum industry and research community.  We hope to improve general awareness of existing seismic data sets and making discovery, trading, and marketing of the data more efficient.  Our archives of over 1,100 drill cores and chip samples from over 12,000 wells stand ready for researches to test their new theses.  Even the most modest leg up in 2016 would mean a doubling or tripling of drilling starts for exploration and development and the Library is ready to help by providing any data you may need to get there. 

The OGSR Library is packed with data, from the core in our warehouse to the nearly 27,000 digital and physical well files.  All of these data serve the Petroleum industry in Ontario, informing many decisions that will inevitably influence the future.  The existence of such data is therefore very important, with data quality being equally as important, but often overlooked.

This time of year is especially important when it comes to data quality as annual production figures are calculated and submitted to the Library.  There is a tremendous amount of time and effort going into these data, not only on our end to review and process the information, but also on the operator’s end to tabulate everything from the past year.  Inevitably, production data will not be perfect due to the sheer volume of information that must be processed and the many people involved in processing it.  We devote a lot of time and resources to Quality Assurance and Quality Control of production data, often times as a result of minor reporting errors.  Since there is no practical way to validate every single value submitted on every single form, errors can go unnoticed.  Such errors will then find their way into the tasks, projects, and decisions based around production data, ultimately influencing the quality of the output from that work.

We always stand behind our data because we have confidence in our practices, experience, and, most importantly, the people reporting the data to us.  Together, we can ensure the continued distribution of high quality data throughout the industry and constantly strive to produce data that is of even higher quality.  It can be as simple as spending a few extra minutes verifying that all fields have been completed and completed accurately.  With over 100 operators submitting production data each and every year, a collective effort to assess data quality before submission is the simplest and most effective means of ensuring quality inputs that translate into quality outputs.

The incorporation of seismic surveys into exploration and development workflows changed the industry’s approach to selecting well locations.  Where a company chooses to purchase existing seismic data or acquire new surveys, the additional information can greatly alter the risk assessment of a given drilling location or even redirect the decision-making process such that prospect inventories and potential drilling locations are entirely different from what would have existed in the absence of seismic data.  Historically, the operational changes that resulted from the incorporation of seismic methods clearly have had a profound positive effect on success rate.  The improvement can be demonstrated by examining historical drilling and production records for various measures of success and plotting that information versus time.

The Ontario Petroleum Data System (OPDS) is the database of petroleum wells maintained by the Petroleum Operations Section (POS) of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry.  The OPDS database currently includes records of more than 26,000 separate boreholes in Ontario that fall under the regulatory jurisdiction of the POS.  When displayed graphically, the OPDS well data strongly indicate the positive influence of the incorporation of seismic data into drilling programs during the last century.

Figure 1 displays the total number of oil or gas exploration plus development wells drilled in the province since 1901.  The increase in the frequency of drilling from about 1930 to the late 1950s, as drilling and production technology advanced and world oil and gas consumption rose, is closely matched in Figure 2 by the number of wells deemed successful for those same years.  A line of best fit is displayed on each graph to illustrate the general trend of the values.

It is evident from the available data that the inclusion of seismic surveys within exploration and development programs significantly improved the historical success rate for the oil and gas industry in Ontario.  Improved success rates of drilling coincide with the introduction of this technology to the province in the 1960s.  Seismic technology experienced significant advances over the following 20 years, and the radically improved production volumes from Ordovician-aged reservoirs coincide with the targeted use of seismic imaging for exploration and delineation of hydrothermal dolomite reservoirs beginning in the 1980s.

Carter, T.R., Trevail, R.A., and Easton, R.M., 1996. Basement controls on some hydrocarbon traps in Southern Ontario, Canada. In: van der Pluijm, B.A. and Catacosinos, P.A., eds., Basement and Basins of Eastern North America. Geological Society of America Special Paper 308, pp. 95-107.

Carter, T.R. and Trevail, R.A., 2008. The Ontario phase of the Trenton-Black River (TBR) hydrothermal dolomite (HTD) play: Historical context and contributions to a modern exploration model. American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 2008 Eastern Section Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA.

Lauriston, V., 1961. Blue Flame of Service: A History of Union Gas Company and the Natural Gas Industry in Southwestern Ontario. 126 p.

Sanford, B.V., 1961. Subsurface stratigraphy of Ordovician rocks in southwestern Ontario.  Geological Survey of Canada Paper 60-26. 54 p.​