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In late November, Husky Energy president John Lau announced new discoveries at the White Rose oil field roughly 350 kilometers off Newfoundland. “These results are very exciting and suggest that significant additional potential exists within the White Rose area,” Lau said in a statement at the time.

Husky actually made two separate discoveries that potentially add up to 230-million barrels of additional oil in the White Rose area. The first related to drilling carried out in late 2008; the second was the result of reassessing decades-old drilling data with the aid of new seismic technology.

When the company began its 2008 drilling program, its primary objective was to test and delineate the main White Rose producing formation, called Ben Nevis Avalon. While drilling that well, Husky took the opportunity to deepen it. In doing so, the company came across a new pool in the Hibernia formation, which sits slightly below Ben Nevis.

The Hibernia formation, which is unrelated to the nearby mega-project of the same name, is a separate reservoir accumulation. “We found the reservoir to be of extremely high-quality, and the crude was light oil,” said Paul McCloskey, Husky’s vice-president of East Coast operations. “So this was clearly enormously encouraging to us.”

Husky found a best estimate of 60-million barrels in the Hibernia formation. The company believes it can access the oil from infrastructure set up to service the North Amethyst satellite field. North Amethyst is scheduled to come online in March or April.

That discovery led Husky to think there was additional potential elsewhere in the Hibernia reservoir. Company officials went back through old drilling records. White Rose was discovered in 1984; the well they re-checked was drilled in 1987. “When we examined the records from that well, we’re now of the opinion that we may have actually penetrated and I think even flowed the Hibernia (formation) in that well,” McCloskey said.

The result? Best estimates of another 170-million barrels of light crude oil. Husky now believes that Hibernia formation potential could exist more broadly under the main field.

McCloskey cautioned that the total number of 230-million barrels relates to petroleum-initially-in-place, or PIIP. “Ultimate recovery will be lower than that, depending on the development scheme and the recovery factor that we achieve. We’re not at the point of being able to engineer that yet, and come up with what we would term a reserve estimate.”

So it’s good news, but theoretical good news, then?

“I think I’d like to call it more than theoretical,” McCloskey noted. “We’re certainly going to be organizing our work programs around better understanding this potential and looking at ways we can exploit it.”

He said it is “way too early” to start throwing around numbers about possible additional field life for White Rose, which began production in late 2005. The original field (with reserves of between 200 and 250-million barrels, of which 137-million have been pumped to date) had an estimated life of 12 to 15 years. Three White Rose satellites total another 214-million, and could tack on three to five years of production.

But in general, it’s logical to assume that more accessible oil means more production. And that is good news. “I think we’re encouraged by the fact that, even though White Rose has been on production for four years, and even though we’ve drilled a number of wells there, we’re still getting some very pleasant surprises,” McCloskey said.

Husky is now assessing what it found, pondering its development options and how to incorporate them into the overall White Rose plan. Husky, as operator, owns a 72.5 per cent interest in the main White Rose field; Suncor Energy holds the remaining 27.5 per cent. Husky has 68.875 per cent of the White Rose satellite fields, including North Amethyst, with Suncor at 26.125 per cent and Newfoundland and Labrador’s Crown-owned Nalcor Energy at five per cent.

The Newfoundland and Labrador government said the Husky announcement of 60-million new barrels at North Amethyst would effectively recoup the purchase price it paid to buy into the three White Rose satellites and another field at Hibernia South. Those equity acquisitions, as initially announced, totaled roughly $74-million.

“This is outstanding news for the people of this province and it certainly proves our critics wrong,” Newfoundland and Labrador deputy premier Kathy Dunderdale told the legislature in early December.