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Posted November 29, 2006
Offshore drilling may be several years away: premier
Vancouver Sun, November 23, 2006
by Miro Cernetig and Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun
B.C.'s offshore oil and natural gas reserves might be open for development within two or three years, once the scientific case for exploration can be made, Premier Gordon Campbell told investors at a Hong Kong business luncheon today.
About 25 years since the federal government put a moratorium on West Coast offshore oil and gas drilling, Campbell told the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong that it would take time to complete the science on the wisdom and potential for offshore drilling.
But in "two to three years," he predicted, "you will see that opportunities expand."
On learning of Campbell's remarks, Jennifer Lash, executive director of B.C.'s Living Oceans Society, suggested the premier is grossly under-estimating the amount of research needed to identify potential risks associated with offshore fossil fuel reserves.
"Knowing the volume of science that needs to be done in order to even consider offshore oil and gas in any comprehensive way, I would say it's impossible to accomplish that in two to three years," Lash said in a telephone interview.
"They will also not have the support of the people of B.C., nor will they have the support of first nations, from my understanding. I think the premier is dreaming, but I also find it quite shocking that he had to make this announcement when he was in Asia and he failed to announce it to the people of B.C.
"If he is planning to move ahead with an industry that would have dire consequences for the coast of B.C., he should be telling us first."
Lash noted that just two weeks ago, federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, told the parliamentary committee on natural resources the federal government is not considering the issue.
"Before a decision like that could ever be undertaken, there would have to be extensive consultations with the first nations, those people affected," Lunn said in Ottawa Nov. 7.
"So at this point in time, that's not something this government is considering."
John Hunter, a director of Ocean Industries B.C., noted in an e-mail that offshore resource development "is not risk free, but with modern practices and appropriate regulation, it is an attractive low-risk opportunity.
It's been proved in the last 25-30 years in modern jurisdictions,"
"Only B.C. suffers from a province-wide federal moratorium on offshore oil and gas," he said.
"Newfoundland and Nova Scotia together have over 20,000 jobs in the offshore. Over 2,000 wells have been drilled in Lake Erie, and over 80 in the Canadian Arctic; Quebec is exploring.
"If it's as bad as these groups claim", he says, "then why aren't the people of Norway, the U.K,, Trinidad, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and many other countries parading in the streets demanding a return to the pre-offshore days?"
In his remarks in Hong Kong, Campbell, who is on an Asia trade mission, said that after the federal government declared the moratorium on offshore West Coast drilling, little scientific data was collected on the subject. But he said his government and the federal government are moving toward collecting information that may eventually lead to tapping the reserves, a resource that some value in the billions of dollars.
The jury is still out on whether there is an economic case to spend the billions of dollars it would likely take to safely retrieve the oil and gas, where deep water and violent storms complicate drilling.
But the B.C. Liberal government has signalled it is open to tapping into the seabed if there is an environmentally sound business case to be made, although it has provided few details of how it might be safely done.
In the service plan for the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum in the last budget, the government stated "the province of British Columbia believes that the potential opportunities provided by offshore oil and gas development are of significant public value.
"The province is taking a principled approach to researching management and regulatory regimes in other jurisdictions in order to identify best practices for West Coast offshore development."
The premier's comments followed a speech designed to bolster foreign investors' interest in the province. He told the audience that since his last visit, in 2001, the B.C. government has cut personal income taxes and moved toward a model of public private partnerships, the so-called P3s, for development of major infrastructure projects.
Campbell has travelled from Tokyo to Shanghai and Beijing, explaining that B.C. is committed to almost quintupling the capacity of West Coast container ports by 2020. In his speech, he said he hopes Hong Kong investors would consider participating in future P3 deals to help build Canada's "Pacific Gateway" to Asia.
"We're comfortable with public-private partnerships in B.C.," he said. "And that's how we're going to build the Pacific Gateway."
For the next three days the premier and his delegation will visiting China's province of Guangdong, a booming manufacturing base that is also B.C.'s "sister province," a status the premier hopes will help build everything from closer business ties to direct flights between the Chinese province's capital of Guangzhou and Vancouver.
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