Sweet gas exploration to continue at Piikani

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A five-year agreement with El Paso Oil is quickly coming to an end and sweet gas has yet to be found on the Piikani Nation.

The first 3D seismic drilling got under way on this southwestern First Nations community shortly before Christmas and has turned out to "be a duster."

Though no sweet gas was located, re-elected Piikani councillor Edwin Small Legs is not losing hope.

"It took our neighbors, the Blood Nation, 10 to 15 times before they struck it," he said.

Officials from El Paso Oil, based out of Calgary, will be meeting with Chief Peter Strikes With A Gun and an almost entirely new band council in February to orient council on the company's plans.

This first rig was shot about four miles east of Brocket. A second drilling is planned for across the Old Man River.

El Paso needs to get a permit from this new council. That, said Small Legs, is only a formality.

Over the four years of the agreement, El Paso has been working with the Piikani Nation in training nearly 150 people to do the necessary work. That work has included security on sites where two-dimensional seismic work was done and also on the rig, which carried out the three-dimensional seismic drilling.

As well, an archaeologist was hired to mark out traditional, spiritual, and historical sites on the reserve.

"We now have a map of all of this and it was paid by El Paso," said Small Legs.

The Piikani Nation is not new to oil and gas exploration. Small Legs himself worked security in the 1960s when Canadian Hunter Oil and Gas was doing seismic work.

"(Canadian Hunter) didn't hit anything then, but I'm not giving up hope. If it's here on the reserve, it's just a matter of time."

And if El Paso's next drilling site is no more productive than its first, Small Legs expects the oil company to pull up stakes and move on. He doesn't begrudge that decision, but he also holds that he will lobby other oil and gas companies to take another look on Piikani land.

"If we find (gas), we have a lot to gain. If we don't find gas, we have nothing to lose," said Small Legs.

If gas is struck, the Piikani Nation will get a percentage of royalties from the find. That money will be able to augment the recent $63 million land settlement reached between the First Nations and the federal and provincial governments.

"If we do strike it, it will have some benefits to start our economy. We have farming, ranching and high unemployment on the reserve. This would help," said Small Legs.

He adds that council gave him the mandate to "hustle up some money. I did (with this gas exploration). And I will keep trying."