Cohasset Panuke

The Cohasset-Panuke Project produced oil from 1992-1999 and is now decommissioned. Project operators were Pan Canadian (now Ovintiv), and LASMO Nova Scotia Limited.

Please note that the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board became the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator on January 31, 2025. Decisions made prior to this date will reference the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB).

Canada’s first offshore oil project.

Produced a total of 44.5 million barrels of oil.

Operated for approximately seven years.

Located approximately 55 km west southwest of Sable Island National Park Reserve.

Status: Decommissioned
Production facilities have been removed and all wells have been permanently plugged and abandoned.

History
The Cohasset-Panuke Project, was Canada's first offshore oil project, and operated from 1992-1999, producing a total of 7.1 million cubic metres of oil, or 44.5 million barrels. The project was developed by LASMO Nova Scotia Limited, in partnership with Nova Scotia Resources (Ventures) Limited. PanCanadian (now Ovintiv) acquired LASMO's 50 per cent ownership in January 1996, becoming operator
of the project.

The Fields
The Cohasset-Panuke Project oil fields are located on the Scotian Shelf approximately 250 kilometres southeast of Halifax. The Cohasset-Panuke Project project had a total of 14 production wells, 10 at Cohasset and four at Panuke. The Cohasset oil field consisted of a series of stacked reservoir sandstones, located within the lower Logan Canyon, Naskapi and Upper Missisauga formations. The Panuke field consisted of a series of stacked reservoir sandstones, located within the upper Missisauga Formation.

Operations
Production facilities consisted of two steel jackets at Cohasset and Panuke, connected by subsea flowline, and a jack-up drilling and production unit, located adjacent to the Cohasset jacket. Produced oil was transferred by flowline to a Floating Storage Offloading vessel moored to a nearby buoy. Shuttle tankers would periodically offload oil from the Floating Storage Offloading vessel for transportation to market.

Decommissioning and Abandonment
The Cohasset-Panuke Project production was permanently shutdown in 1999 and decommissioning and abandonment was completed in 2006. The required ongoing environmental follow-up surveys were completed in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Project Information

We publish reports and data on oil and gas activities. View the status of a project and reports related to production numbers, environmental effects monitoring, and industrial benefits, if available, below. You can also view requests made by operators for project deviations, and decisions made by our Chief Safety Officer or Chief Conservation Officer to ensure that regulatory requirements are upheld.

As part of our comprehensive Monitoring and Compliance program, our team also monitors oil and gas production from offshore projects. This is required as part of our regulatory mandate of resource conservation. View total production data for the Cohasset-Panuke Project below. Links below are Adobe Acrobat Files.

Document Title
Document COPAN Monthly Production Reports (PDF)
Document COPAN Monthly Production Plots (PDF)

Please note that some information related to this project may be archived. For more information, please contact us at info@cnsoer.ca