Offshore oil decision promised by year's end

Rudy Haugeneder
Victoria News
August 19, 2005

Minister says it won’t happen unless environmentally safe

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.