How much shale gas is in New Brunswick?

It's been 12 years since the Liberal government of Brian Gallant implemented a moratorium on shale gas exploration. And now a different Liberal government is looking at ending that moratorium. But one thing that hasn't changed is how much gas is down in those rocks. Now it wouldn't be fair to say that rock stands still. It does move but very slowly. Like millions of years slowly. At that time, in southern New Brunswick, there was a very vast setting where marine conditions were prevailing. So we had some kind of a large ocean in which organic matter, which are fine grain of small elements, small fossils that were living in the water, after they died, they accumulate on the water floor, the sea floor. And with time, these accumulations become more and more important, and they get progressively buried as more sediments accumulate on top. So at some point, these sediments and organic matter are buried under hundreds and hundreds of meters of rocks, and the organic matter then is transformed in hydrocarbons from the effect of increased temperature. So from a human perspective, that shale is right where it was 12 years ago. And that location is over much of New Brunswick. The area east of that imaginary line is this beige colour and this yellow colour. That signifies sedimentary rocks of sandstone and mudstone and shale. Sedimentary rocks contain small spaces between the particles of sand and mud, sandstone and mudstone. Those spaces or pores can contain water in most cases, but that water can be displaced by gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, natural gas, methane, or even petroleum oils. There has been some shale gas extraction in New Brunswick, but not much. There are two gas fields that have been tapped, but only a fraction of that gas has been extracted. Both fields are located in what's known as the Moncton Sub Basin. The Macaulay Field near Sussex, which the province estimates has 67.3 trillion cubic feet of gas. There's also the Stoney Creek Field near Hillsborough, which the province estimates has 10.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. To put that in perspective, Alberta has 3,455 trillion cubic feet. Another thing that hasn't changed is our knowledge, at least when it comes to knowing how much shale gas is actually there. We have the estimates from the Macaulay and the Stoney Creek gas fields but we don't really have estimates for the rest of the province and the estimates that we do have are just that, estimates. So if these yellow rocks and potentially some of these beige rocks contain probably the maximum amount that they could at sufficient depth and we know how thick these units are, then you can make a general calculation of how much rock you've got, therefore how much of that rock is these spaces, these pores, and then you can calculate what volume that is and so what the volume could be filled with natural gas rather than water. It's the best case scenario. The high number, the number that's being quoted is the best case scenario which is which is standard. And it's important to note that having shale rock is not the same as having shale gas. In some areas you have shale but they were not buried deeper enough so the organic matter hasn't been transformed so you don't have hydrocarbons in those shales. So we have to have a good understanding of what is the quantity of organic matter in the rock and to which depth these rocks were buried.