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U.S. revives interest in Georges Bank
A provision in the new U.S. energy bill could spur both Washington and Ottawa to rethink their policies on a potential mother lode of oil and natural gas in the Atlantic offshore and set off a showdown with the fishing industry and environmentalists.
The legislation signed by President George W. Bush calls on the U.S. government to conduct a survey of drilling sites along the eastern coastline, including Georges Bank off Nantucket.
Although the bill does not remove the drilling ban, it lifts a prohibition on exploration which was introduced in the 1990s.
The underwater plateau extends from Cape Cod northward to Nova Scotia, straddling the international boundary.
Energy companies have pressed for three decades to start exploring a region that is rated as one of the world’s most lucrative fishing grounds. Moratorium extended in 1992 Six years ago, Canada sided with the U.S. in extending a 1992 moratorium on development of Georges Bank to 2012.
That followed a battle royal when a joint Nova Scotia-Canada panel heard 80 submissions on the impact of exploring and drilling Canada’s 11,000-square-mile portion of the bank, where leaseholders at the time — BP Amoco, Chevron Canada Resources and TexacoCanada — proposed to drill in the fingertip of the bank.
The Geological Survey of Canada has estimated the Canadian zone has recoverable reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet of gas and 2 billion barrels of oil. Fishing industries oppose drilling But representatives of the Canadian and U.S. fishing industries warned the panel that a US$100 million a year industry could be ruined by a single oil spill or gas leak.
They also argued that removing the Canadian moratorium at that time might have generated retaliatory measures following President Bill Clinton’s decision in 1998 to rule the U.S. portion of Georges Bank off limits to exploration until 2012.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers was anxious that extending the freeze might set a precedent that could put the brakes on all of the Nova Scotia offshore, where gas reserves have been projected at 350 trillion cubic feet.
The industry argued it has tough regulations in place limiting the release of oil-based drilling lubricants to 15 percent of the total discharge and has made strong gains in seismic and drilling techniques that require fewer holes to be drilled.
—Gary Park
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