Its made clear that the fracing for study will be done where and when the industry decides they want to frac. The 'when' will obviously be affected by how much time permits, equipment and so on takes, but thats how it has allways been.

The 'where' might also be slightly dependant on where we get enough 'local acceptability', but if we take the st. edouard pilot-project as an example, thats a place we the locals won't be a problem.

And btw, keep in mind who said "no fracking for production".

Whats clear, and are being blown up as a big thing in the media, is that the industry won't be allowed to start drilling a large amount of wells for a commercial development. Making a big issue out of this just underlines how little the opposition know about where the industry is today, and what they are doing. We hardly even drill exploration wells.

Its not if the well is tied in for selling gas or not that determines if the well is a commercial well (even though it fullfill the actual defenition of the word).

None of the shalegascompanys in the Utica got any commercial wells, and are not likely to have any for probably another two years, regardless of restrictions from the government.

There is a reason our wells cost 10-15M CAD. Its pilot-wells, or research-wells if you like. Our future commercial wells will hopefully cost around one third of that. But for these research-wells to be aknowledge as such by the public, and inherently the government, they will now have to be monitored by the SEA. While the industry will still need to pay attention to alot of readings and variables when they drill 200 wells a year, thats a completely different ballgame then drilling pilot-wells. The former won't be allowed for now, the latter will.

One might ask if not the planned St. Edouard multipad(s) will be stopped by these 'restrictions'. This project have been adressed as a "demonstration project to demonstrate commercial parameters", simulating how a fullscale exploitation would look like and, most importanly, cost. It will be tied in and all. Sounds alot like drilling for commercial purposes, but its an equal necessity for the SEA's mandat, as continued fracking is, if they are to follow the recommendation from the BAPE-report:

The BAPE recommended the long-term study look at whether, on a socio-economic basis, shale gas should be produced in Quebec and how to maximize revenues from its production; the environmental impact and risks of shale-gas development and how to minimize their impact; improving regulations for the environmental assessment of gas exploration and production in the St. Lawrence River valley, and elsewhere in Quebec[.]

The economical aspect will play a significant part in their mandate. And unless they intend to pull out those numbers from you-know-where, commercial demonstration pads would be the only way to go. Besides, these pads will provide more valuable data then single test-wells, since the SEA is supposed to find out how the fullscale development would affect the environment, not just single wells scattered around. And short of actually doing that fullscale development, the multipad-project is as close as you gets.

Hopefully that gave you a certain degree of clarification, even though I obviously can't know for sure how it will pan out. Pretty sure neither do the relevant ministrys.