The federal government has announced a new regulatory measure to substantially speed up the review process for exploratory drilling projects in the province’s offshore.
Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan says the regulation means that exploratory drilling projects in the province’s offshore are excluded from the requirement to undergo a project-specific federal impact assessment.
The regulation will apply to the area assessed by the Regional Assessment of Exploratory Drilling, along with consultation from some 41 indigenous groups, and to exploratory drilling projects when they conform to the “rigorous” environmental and consultation conditions.
This only applies to exploratory drilling.
Minister O’Regan says the assessment will now take approximately 90-days in comparison to over 900-days just three-years ago. He says it was a long time coming.
O’Regan believes this is another step towards fulfilling government’s commitment to protecting the environment and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, while ensuring good projects can move forward in a timely manner.
Minister O’Regan says this takes the amount of time it will take to complete these assessments from what was previously 905-days about three years ago, down to 90-days now. @VOCMNEWS #covid19nfld
— Ben Murphy (@VOCMBen) June 4, 2020
Industry Consultant says Announcement Missed the Mark
A local oil industry consultant says today’s announcement wasn’t what the local industry was hoping for.
Rob Strong is a pioneer in the local industry and played an instrumental role in the development of the Hibernia project. He says what’s needed are incentives for drilling.
(Rob Strong.)
The federal government’s Petroleum Incentive Program was in effect from 1979 to 1984, something that Strong says helped stimulate offshore drilling and led to the discovery of Hibernia, Hebron, White Rose, and Terra Nova. The final cost to government was $6-billion, according to Strong.
He says some will say that it resulted in a return of $60-billion to the federal and provincial government’s coffers.
Strong says today’s announcement means an added layer of regulatory red tape has been removed for exploration licences in areas where drilling rigs are already operating.
