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Offshore oil decision promised by year's end
The following article in the Victoria News makes it clear that it's extremely important that we all write the federal Liberal government and MP's now. The federal Liberals are under tremendous lobby pressure from the BC Campbell Liberals to lift the moratorium on coastal oil and gas development. Only a massive upsurge of concerned Canadians, including YOU, will prevent a disastrous decision! Go to our website www.bcoilslick.org to the Take Action section to find the addresses to write letters to the federal government.-- Ken Wu and Pearl Gottschalk, WCWC Victoria
Minister says it won’t happen unless environmentally safe
Victoria News, August 19, 2005
By Rudy Haugeneder
BC’s bitter offshore oil and gas battle with Ottawa is quickly nearing a conclusion. Ottawa has set a year-end deadline on the fate of the decades old moratorium on BC offshore oil and gas exploration and development, says a federal cabinet minister.
The federal government will make “a full decision” on the future of BC’s vast
oil and gas reserves “by the end of this year,” said Western Economic
Diversification Minister Stephen Owen.
“We’re getting close,” the former deputy attorney general of BC said in an
interview Tuesday at the University of Victoria.
Owen wouldn’t disclose what he expects the federal cabinet decision will be,
but said offshore development won’t be allowed to take place unless
it’s “environmentally safe.” He said that may be the reason “oil and gas
companies are in no hurry to see exploration.”
However, several southern Vancouver Island high-technology companies that
provide offshore oil and gas expertise are eager for the moratorium to be
lifted.
David Fissel, vice president of ASL Environmental Sciences that provides
oceanographic environmental assessments to offshore rigs in Africa, Russia
and the US said “It would generate jobs and business opportunities for all of
us. Estimating that there are at least 100 ocean science and engineering
companies head quartered in BC-dozens in the Victoria area-that would benefit
if the moratorium is lifted, he said, “it would be nice, from a business
point of view, to be closer to home.”
Local MP and former federal environment minister David Anderson said the
Campbell government won’t like Ottawa’s answer.
He said the idea of lifting the moratorium has been “90 per cent dead and
shelved” for several months at the federal level-and the provincial
government knows it.
It’s why the Campbell government “didn’t mention the moratorium before or
after the (May) provincial election,” he said.
Anderson said in an independent review by a Royal Society of Canada panel of
experts shows 75 per cent of British Columbians oppose offshore oil and gas
exploration and developments at this time.
“To do anything else would make a mockery of the process,” Anderson said.
Another local Liberal MP, Dr. Keith Martin, seemed taken aback by Owen’s
unexpected remarks, but agreed no exploration and development should be
allowed unless it’s environmentally safe.
Only then will the federal government give the green light to offshore
development, said Martin, the parliamentary secretary to Minister of Defence
Bill Graham and a strong proponent of alternative energy such as tidal power.
The Royal Society’s offshore report concluded that “provided an adequate
regulatory regime is put in place, there are no science gaps that need to be
filled before lifting the moratoria on oil and gas development.”
Steve Simons, provincial oil and gas communications director, is also
surprised that Ottawa is ready to act on the moratorium because “they haven’t
given us a deadline date.”
He said the Royal Society Report estimates BC waters have six offshore oil
fields holding 100 million barrels of oil, and nine gas fields with 9.8
trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Simons said that based on an oil price of $35 a barrel, the total value of
BC’s potential oil and gas reserves is $110 billion.
Oil and gas prices are currently around $67 a barrel.
Acknowledging that the moratorium is likely to be lifted at some time,
Anderson said it’s ok to leave the oil and gas in the ground until better
environmentally safe technology is developed to extract it.
Owen was at UVIC to announce $3 million in federal grants for ocean research
and the technology sector.
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