US major Chevron has unsurprisingly decided to delay its already somewhat distant plans for a potential wildcat well in Canada’s frontier Arctic Beaufort Sea, with the current economic uncertainty and lower oil prices firmly blamed for the halt.

The operator submitted a letter to Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) withdrawing from a hearing on Arctic drilling rules. It had planned to drill a well possibly by 2020 in unspecified water depths in its EL481 block, some 250 km north-west of Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. The block features water depths ranging up to 1,500 m (4,921 ft).

Chevron has a 100% stake in EL481, along with a controlling 60% in another, where it is partnered by Norway’s Statoil. It originally paid more than Can $103 million for the rights to explore the 508,000 acre block.

• Imperial Oil is still planning to go ahead with its plans to drill in the Beaufort Sea, in partnership with BP and ExxonMobil. However the companies are yet to make a final decision on the planned campaign, which again would not get underway until at least 2020 and could well also find itself pushed onto the backburner in the near future. Their blocks are located about 175 km northwest of Tuktoyaktuk.

Of 92 wells drilled in the Beaufort Sea to date, all have been drilled in shallow waters of no deeper than 68 m (223 ft).