The following is being distributed at the request of the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board:

Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board's revised oil 
and gas resource estimates for the White Rose field

The Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board has updated its estimates of discovered oil and gas resources for the White Rose field. The release of the revised estimates is the product of further engineering, geophysical and geological assessments that have been undertaken by the Board as part of its internal review of the White Rose development application and incorporates new information acquired from the White Rose H 20 well. The recoverable oil, gas and natural gas liquids resource estimates have been revised as follows:

Summary: White Rose field discovered revised resource estimates^a

^a All estimates are based on the C-NOPB's assessment of proven/probable resources expressed at 50% probability, consistent with previous resource estimates of the Board. The Board will continue to update these resource estimates as new information is acquired from drilling and production activities.

^b New estimate includes solution gas volume of 3.69 billion cubic metres (131 billion standard cubic feet)

^c New estimate includes solution gas natural gas liquids volume of 0.65 million cubic metres (4 million barrels)

Terminology used by the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board

Assessment of the discovered oil and gas "reserves" and "resources" in oil and gas fields is an important function of the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board. "Reserves" is used to describe those volumes of hydrocarbons, oil and/or gas, that are considered to be recoverable using current technology, and under present and anticipated economic conditions. For example the oil in Hibernia and Terra Nova is referred to as reserves. "Discovered resources" is used to describe those volumes of hydrocarbons that have been assessed to be technically recoverable, but have not been delineated and/or have uncertain economic viability. The volume of discovered resources includes that proven by drilling and testing and the interpretation of geological, geophysical or other information; and, deemed to be technically recoverable. Since the assessment of both reserves and discovered resources depends on the interpretation of data available at a given time, the estimates of hydrocarbons are further classified to reflect inherent uncertainty in the interpretation and the lack of detailed geological and reservoir data. The natural gas and natural gas liquids in the Hibernia and Terra Nova fields and the oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids in most of the fields offshore Newfoundland and Labrador are referred to as discovered resources.

Media contact: Edsel Bonnell, Public Information Coordinator, (709) 778-1440.

2001 06 26                                                         2:45 p.m.