Junex holds rights for more than 6 million acres under exploration permits located in the Appalachian Basins in Quebec. These rights are shared out between the St-Lawrence Lowlands and Gaspésie areas and includes some licences in which Junex only holds a royalty on the future production of hydrocarbons.

Junex strategy consists in concluding exploration partnerships on these permits in order to valorize its projects while reducing exploration-related risks. In addition to the partnership for oil production of Haldimand, Junex can now rely on four active exploration partnerships, from which three imply that most of the exploration capital will be invested by them.

These partnerships allow Junex to invest its own exploration capital on “mature” projects where presence of petroleum and natural gas has been proven. In 2006, the company mainly invested in the following projects: Bécancour/Champlain, Haldimand, Galt and Baie-des-Chaleurs.

St. Lawrence Lowland

Junex holds more than 1.1 million net acres in this region. The sedimentary basin of the Lowlands is undeformed, easily accessible and favourably deserved by the North-American gas pipeline. Many interesting indications of natural gas were observed in the basin and two natural gas deposits were produced. This basin is presently active in terms of exploration works which are essentially following geological objectives of Ordovician Trenton/Black-River and Utica Shales. The Trenton/Black-River zone is very prolific in New York State where a subsidiary of Talisman Energy has obtained worldwide successes during the last years. On the other hand, natural gas production from Shales has exploded in the United States for the last ten years, mainly because of the technological and technical developments which allowed economical production of this resource. Exploration of the basin of the St-Lawrence Lowlands, located in the continuity of the Appalachian basin of the United States is largely stimulated by the successes our southern neighbours have known recently.

Gaspésie

In the Gaspe area, Junex works in two different Basins : Gaspe and Baie-des-Chaleurs. The basin of Gaspe was formed by the deposit of Silurian age sediments to Carboniferous age (340 to 440 million years) and most of the sedimentary rocks which cover it are of Devonian age (400 million years). The main exploration targets in this basin are the dolomitised limestones by hydrothermal fluids (HTD) and marine sandstones. Haldimand and Galt are Junex’s two projects in the basin of Gaspe. The sedimentary basin of Baie-des-Chaleurs is essentially Silurian (440 million years) and is practically unexplored in spite of the fact that Silurian rocks contain major hydrocarbon deposits in the American regions of the Appalachians. The most known deposits are those located in the Niagarian reefs in Ontario or the Clinton Sandstones in Ohio.