Hydrocarbon resource assessment of Hudson Bay, northern Canada

A revised qualitative assessment of the hydrocarbon resource potential is presented for the Hudson Bay sedimentary basin that underlies Hudson Bay and adjacent onshore areas of Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. The Hudson Basin is a large intracratonic sedimentary basin thatpreserves dominantly Ordovician to Devonian aged limestone and evaporite strata. Maximum preserved sediment thickness is about 2.5 km. Source rock is the petroleum system element that has the lowest chance of success; the potential source rock is thin, may be discontinuous, and the thin sedimentarycover may not have been sufficient to achieve the temperatures required to generate and expel oil from a source rock over much of the basin. The highest potential is in the center of the basin, where the hydrocarbon potential is considered amp;lt;'Mediumamp;gt;'. Hydrocarbon potential decreasestowards the edges of the basin due to fewer plays being present, and thinner strata reduce the chance of oil generation and expulsion. Quantitative hydrocarbon assessment considers seven plays. Input parameters for field size and field density (per unit area) are based on analog Michigan, Williston,and Illinois intracratonic sedimentary basins that are about the same age and that had similar depositional settings to Hudson Basin. Basin-wide play and local prospect chances of success were assigned based on local geological conditions in Hudson Bay. Each of the seven plays were analyzed in Roseand Associates PlayRA software, which performs a Monte Carlo simulation using the local chance of success matrix and field size and prospect numbers estimated from analog basins. Hudson sedimentary basin has a mean estimate of 67.3 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent and a 10% chance ofhaving 202.2 or more million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. The mean chance for the largest expected pool is about 15 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE), and there is only a 10% chance of there being a field larger than 23.2 MMBOE recoverable. The small expected fieldsizes are based on the large analog data set from Michigan, Williston and Illinois basins, and are due to the geological conditions that create the traps. The small size of the largest expected field, the low chance of exploration success, and the small overall resource make it unlikely that there are any economically recoverable hydrocarbons in the Hudson Basin in the foreseeable future. The Southampton Island area of interest includes 93 087 km2 of nearshore waters around Southampton Island and Chesterfield Inlet in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. Of the total resource estimated for Hudson Bay, 14 million barrels are apportioned to the Southampton Island Area of Interest.

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Last Updated October 20, 2025, 02:58 (UTC)
Created October 20, 2025, 02:58 (UTC)
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Hydrocarbon resource assessment of Hudson Bay, northern Canada
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A revised qualitative assessment of the hydrocarbon resource potential is presented for the Hudson Bay sedimentary basin that underlies Hudson Bay and adjacent onshore areas of Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. The Hudson Basin is a large intracratonic sedimentary basin thatpreserves dominantly Ordovician to Devonian aged limestone and evaporite strata. Maximum preserved sediment thickness is about 2.5 km. Source rock is the petroleum system element that has the lowest chance of success; the potential source rock is thin, may be discontinuous, and the thin sedimentarycover may not have been sufficient to achieve the temperatures required to generate and expel oil from a source rock over much of the basin. The highest potential is in the center of the basin, where the hydrocarbon potential is considered amp;lt;'Mediumamp;gt;'. Hydrocarbon potential decreasestowards the edges of the basin due to fewer plays being present, and thinner strata reduce the chance of oil generation and expulsion. Quantitative hydrocarbon assessment considers seven plays. Input parameters for field size and field density (per unit area) are based on analog Michigan, Williston,and Illinois intracratonic sedimentary basins that are about the same age and that had similar depositional settings to Hudson Basin. Basin-wide play and local prospect chances of success were assigned based on local geological conditions in Hudson Bay. Each of the seven plays were analyzed in Roseand Associates PlayRA software, which performs a Monte Carlo simulation using the local chance of success matrix and field size and prospect numbers estimated from analog basins. Hudson sedimentary basin has a mean estimate of 67.3 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent and a 10% chance ofhaving 202.2 or more million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent. The mean chance for the largest expected pool is about 15 million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE), and there is only a 10% chance of there being a field larger than 23.2 MMBOE recoverable. The small expected fieldsizes are based on the large analog data set from Michigan, Williston and Illinois basins, and are due to the geological conditions that create the traps. The small size of the largest expected field, the low chance of exploration success, and the small overall resource make it unlikely that there are any economically recoverable hydrocarbons in the Hudson Basin in the foreseeable future. The Southampton Island area of interest includes 93 087 km2 of nearshore waters around Southampton Island and Chesterfield Inlet in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. Of the total resource estimated for Hudson Bay, 14 million barrels are apportioned to the Southampton Island Area of Interest.
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2023-08-04
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Open Government Licence - Canada
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https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/3474d5e1-7770-893d-2d3f-87d5658d3d5c
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Natural Resources Canada | Ressources naturelles Canada
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Government of Canada; Natural Resources Canada; Geological Survey of Canada, [email protected]
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[email protected]
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None
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