A local industry analyst is calling for changes requiring companies sitting on land in the province’s offshore to develop, or move on.

Rob Strong, who has been watching the local oil industry since its infancy, told VOCM Open Line that a number of companies hold ‘significant discovery licenses’ but continue to sit on those properties.

He says it was a problem in the North Sea and the U.K. government decided to take action.

“We have a whole whack of what we call significant discovery licenses. These are areas that have been awarded to companies, but they’re not being produced. In the U.K. that happened several years ago, and they introduced a policy saying ‘use it, or lose it.’ So, I think we should be looking very seriously at what’s done with fallow acreage.”

Last fall, oil industry journalist Ian Essau suggested the same.

He says significant discovery licenses – or SDLs – which hold trillions of cubic feet of associated gas off Newfoundland and trillions more of non-associated gas off Labrador, could be commercialized if transferred to other companies.

Essau suggested that Ottawa and NL bring in new legislation to force oil companies to develop oil and gas held in SDLs or release the assets back to government to auction them off to willing developers.

C-NLOER Reviewing Land Tenure System

The province’s offshore regulator says it is reviewing its land tenure system in collaboration with the federal and provincial governments to help identify ways to improve competitiveness.

The C-NLOER says it is committed to reducing the time required to obtain approvals and authorizations and to move from discovery to production.

Parcel design for the 2026 Call for Bids is underway for some of the areas in the east Orphan, Flemish Pass and Jeanne d”Arc Basins including recently relinquished licences and parcels offered in previous calls for bids.

Final parcel selections, terms and conditions will be announced in June with a closing date in November.