Oilsands Exploration Near La Loche Showing Promise

Oilsands Exploration Near La Loche Showing Promise

Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 13:05

A Calgary firm that’s exploring the oilsands potential north of La Loche is reporting an 87 per cent success rate in recent drilling.

Oilsands Quest says between November 3rd and January 15th, a total of 31 holes were drilled. Of these, 27 intercepted the bitumen-bearing McMurray formation.

CEO Christopher Hopkins says his firm is extremely pleased with the results — noting that their drilling program last winter achieved an 80 per cent success ratio.

Hopkins also points out that the more recent exploratory work covers a much larger area.

Currently, the company has five core drilling rigs at work. It expects six rigs to be drilling by the end of the month, and eight rigs to be in use by the end of February.

The company has drilling permits for up to another 150 exploratory holes this winter.

It plans to begin exploration drilling to the north and south of its Axe Lake Discovery shortly.