In 1972, federal and provincial governments decided to cease oil and gas activities off the West Coast, primarily due to concerns about proposed Alaskan oil tanker traffic. Before the governments imposed the moratoria, 14 offshore wells had been drilled. The wells determined the presence of natural gas and non-commercial quantities of crude oil.

Current petroleum estimates are based on past geological surveys of the offshore basins. As there have been a limited number of surveys completed in the Queen Charlotte Basin (QCB), estimates are still uncertain. The amount of oil and gas present depends on a number of geological factors, including the amount of source rocks and the size and number of potential reservoirs. Median estimates for offshore resources in the QCB by the Geological Survey of Canada are 9.8 billion barrels of oil and 25.9 trillion cubic feet of gas (Hannigan et al., 1998) The amount of this oil that is considered recoverable is estimated at 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is about the same size as the Jeanne d'Arc basin offshore of Newfoundland. Complicated geology and other expected exploration risks mean that these estimates are only very preliminary; more seismic data and numerous exploration wells are required to yield a more accurate estimate of how much oil and gas could likely be recovered from the QCB.