Natural gas from tight sands history
To some degree, there has always been production from tight sands in Canada. In some cases, production is drawn from marginal quality reservoirs within conventional producing regions, and in some cases from locally higher permeability strata within tight formations. It is only recently, with the advent of higher commodity prices and development techniques such as horizontal and directional drilling, underbalanced drilling, directional fracturing and carbon dioxide and nitrogen fracturing fluids that tight sands have become exploration targets.
The expansion of infill drilling in the shallow gas play of southeast Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan was due in part to recognition of the tight nature of many of the sandstone reservoirs in this area. Recent activity in the Deep Basin area of Alberta and British Columbia is also driven in part by recognition of tight gas reservoirs. The largest sale of petroleum and natural gas rights (generally referred to as land sales) in Canadian history was in British Columbia in 2003, targeting tight carbonates in northeastern British Columbia using advanced drilling and completion technologies.
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