On Tuesday we had more than one unexpected guest attend our meeting with Saint Edouard land owners about our local project for Utica natural gas development. We were pleased our answers to challenges from the small group of professional protesters were received civilly and sometimes even constructively. It was still a disappointment for us and many community members we were not able to have the discussion we came for.
On the positive side, now that we are well introduced to the protesters, we hope to have further constructive discussions at a time of our mutual choice. We will reach out to community members privately to answer their questions on the sign-on payments and other practical issues that could not be addressed at the meeting.
Saint Edouard residents demonstrated great support for this project. In fact, 449 out of the 490 land owners we approached signed voluntary agreements to allow a 3D seismic project exploring for natural gas on their land — 90% support! This mirrors the support we typically receive in farming areas in the West. This shows people are not against our industry once informed of the costs and the benefits.
Unfortunately, we had to announce that the project is not going forward at this time at the cost to Questerre and the local community.
We are very grateful that local support is not one of the reasons we delayed.
We remain committed to being a good partner in Saint Edouard and we are supporting local community projects in spite of our project being delayed.
