|
B.C. says offshore oil, gas industry will be ‘up and running’ by 2010
Gary Park, PNA Canadian correspondent
The British Columbia government has decided to seize the initiative by pledging to have an offshore oil and natural gas industry “up and running” by 2010.
In pledging to establish a new energy frontier that is “environmentally sound and booming with job creation,” the government has set a bold target to resolve aboriginal land claims, environmental concerns and a rift within the Canadian government that stand in the way of exploiting its offshore resource riches.
The timetable, announced in a speech Feb. 11 to open a new legislative session, is “ambitious but not impossible to achieve,” said a spokesman with the British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines.
Energy and Mines Minister Richard Neufeld said a division in his department is working on an offshore plan.
“There’s a lot of work to do in dealing with the federal government and the First Nations communities,” he said. “It is (an optimistic goal), but we are sure we can get there.”
The government, which is struggling with the collapse of its mining, forestry and fishing sectors, said offshore oil gas exploration holds tremendous promise for communities in the northwest and north Vancouver Island.
Of the several basins off the British Columbia coast, the Queen Charlotte Basin is believed to hold almost 10 billion barrels of oil and 26 trillion cubic feet of gas, while the nearby Winona and Georgia Basin are thought to hold an additional 16 trillion cubic feet of gas.
Little exploration has occurred But Scott Trollope, chief geologist with the frontier business unit of Shell Canada Ltd., told an investment conference last year the reserve estimates are misunderstood because so little exploration has occurred.
Shell Canada drilled a number of wells in the 1960s without reporting any finds before the Canadian government imposed a ban in 1971 on crude tankers traveling through the region from Valdez.
British Columbia imposed its own moratorium in 1982 and extended the ban indefinitely after the Exxon Valdez disaster.
The British Columbia government’s first challenge is to get federal agreement to open up the region to oil and gas exploration — a task that puts the two most vitally affected cabinet ministers, both of them from British Columbia, on a collision course.
Environment Minister David Anderson told CanWest News Services Feb. 12 that the government’s expectations of a 2010 start-up are “perhaps a trifle exuberant.”
He showed no enthusiasm for the prediction, just moments earlier, of Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal that the federal moratorium could be lifted this year.
Environmental assessment needed Anderson said the offshore will need at least C$100 million of environmental assessment and exploration to “find out whether there is in fact any oil and gas in the area.”
Dhaliwal told reporters he agreed that the British Columbia government’s hopes of a thriving industry depends heavily on the industry.
However, he said he will press cabinet to appoint a panel of experts to study the issue and make recommendations to government.
The leaseholders — Shell Canada, which several years ago farmed out a 50 percent share of 12 million gross acres to Chevron Canada Resources, and Petro-Canada — have given no immediate reaction to the 2010 timetable.
Chevron Canada president Jim Simpson said last April his company is eager to start exploring once the regulatory, environmental and public consultation issues are resolved, reflecting the passive views of Shell and Petro-Canada.
Of all the obstacles, the toughest to overcome is likely to be a tangle of aboriginal land claims, with at least four First Nations filing for title over marine resources in Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Sound.
The First Nations and an array of environmental groups have vowed they will fight any attempts to allow exploration, pointing to British Columbia’s high-risk potential for earthquakes and tsunamis.
| 