Drilling ban on Canada's Pacific coast panned
Date: 03-May-02
Country: CANADA
Author: Allan Dowd
A scientific panel created by the provincial government to review a 1972 drilling moratorium, cautioned however that before any exploration was allowed more needed to be known about issues such as sea bottom conditions in the main target area near the Queen Charlotte Islands.
Premier Gordon Campbell wants to allow drilling to help spur the province's economy, and the government press release on the report said the panel also found the moratorium was never officially enacted by the province or Ottawa and maintained only as a general policy.
British Columbia Minister of Energy and Mines Richard Neufeld, praised the findings and said C$2 million ($1.3 million) would now be spent to study technical issues.
"The potential for safe, scientifically sound exploration has been confirmed. Clearly there is much more work to be done before any decision to allow exploration or development can proceed," he said in a written statement.
Neufeld received the panel's findings several weeks ago, but did not release them until Wednesday after they were leaked to the news media.
The Geological Survey of Canada estimates B.C.'s Queen Charlotte Basin, off the southern tip of the Alaska panhandle, has reserves of 9.8 billion barrels of oil and 25.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas - making it one of the country's largest energy reserves.
Canada allows drilling off its Atlantic coast but has maintained the moratorium on exploration off the Pacific coast. It considered lifting it in 1989, but the public outcry following the wreck of the oil tanker Exxon Valdez in Alaska brought a quick end to the idea.
Environmentalists and some native Indian groups have vowed to fight drilling in what they say is an ecologically sensitive region.
"We will not agree with lifting of the moratorium unless there is an independent assessment completed that addresses the environmental, legal, economic and cultural impacts," the First Nation's Summit said.
Federal Environmental Minister David Anderson, who helped establish the moratorium, has also said he would oppose any attempt to end it without extensive study.
A Canadian unit of ChevronTexaco Corp. and Petro-Canada hold leases in area.
Petro-Canada spokesman Chris Dawson said the release of the report is one step in a long process and much more work needed to be done. The company has not asked for the moratorium to be lifted.
Dawson said the province and Ottawa needed to create a single regulatory framework and that Indian land claims and environmental-protection rules all had to be finalized before any exploration could begin.
"It's still a long ways off before you're likely to see any exploration activity," he said, adding that offshore development in the area was not on his company's list of "core business interests."
