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rfmcdonaldRob Ferguson's article in today's Toronto Star, "Province betting on oil in our backyard,", tells the latest installment in the long story of Ontario's oil industry.
The southwestern Ontario city of Sarnia has long been the center of a prosperous farming district on the shores of Lake Huron that saw the erection of the first oil well in the world in 1858. Although the relative importance of the Sarnia oil fields has diminished greatly, Sarnia remains a major Canadian centre for the processing of petroleum and related fuels. This processing, taking place in the so-called "Chemical Valley," is also associated with heavy pollution that has been blamed for radically skewing the sex ratio among newborns in the area, with one First Nations community reporting twice as many females as males born.
Can more black gold and natural gas be squeezed from Ontario's tiny and little-known oil patch near Sarnia?
Ever hopeful, the Ontario government is spending $300,000 on an airborne geophysical survey of 11,000 square kilometres to find out. It argues that more drilling in these challenging economic times could stimulate the local economy.
[. . .]
Starting next month, a Piper Navajo packed with electronic equipment will take to the skies between Strathroy and Sarnia and Lake Erie and Lake Huron to do the survey.
"To be honest, we're probably not going to find a Saudi Arabia in here," says Derek Armstrong, a Paleozoic geologist with the ministry of northern development and mines in Sudbury.
Asked how much oil and gas might lie waiting, he said: "Until you look, you don't know."
What is known is that Ontario's oil patch – where the global petroleum industry began in the mid-1800s – was born 550 million years ago when rocks full of dead marine organisms like algae and plankton were deposited in the floor of ancient seas and buried as the land mass migrated north from the Equator to its current location. Depending on the depth and temperature, those dead organisms can transform into oil and gas.
If the magnetic images produced in six weeks of flying straight lines 200 metres above the ground, 500 metres apart, don't point to more oil and gas potential, there is hope they may reveal giant caverns suitable for storing carbon dioxide in the fight against climate change.
The southwestern Ontario city of Sarnia has long been the center of a prosperous farming district on the shores of Lake Huron that saw the erection of the first oil well in the world in 1858. Although the relative importance of the Sarnia oil fields has diminished greatly, Sarnia remains a major Canadian centre for the processing of petroleum and related fuels. This processing, taking place in the so-called "Chemical Valley," is also associated with heavy pollution that has been blamed for radically skewing the sex ratio among newborns in the area, with one First Nations community reporting twice as many females as males born.
