The controversial Bay du Nord project could be only the prelude to future oil exploitation in the marine environment east of Newfoundland. The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board has auctioned nearly 100,000 km2 new exploration permits, some of which encroach on the largest marine biodiversity protection area in the east of the country.
As part of a call for tenders that should be concluded on November 2, the federal-provincial organization plans to award 38 new exploration “plots”. These are divided into two sectors which represent a total area of 96,708 km2. If all the permits find takers, this would represent a very significant jump in the area of open marine environments in search of new oil deposits over the next few years. There are currently about 36,000 km2 of permits.
This new call for tenders has been approved by the Board of Directors of the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-TNLOHE), which includes representatives appointed by the federal and of the province. It must lead “at the beginning of 2023” to the issuance of new permits which will be valid for nine years. “The only criterion for selecting the successful bid will be the total amount that the bidder undertakes to spend on exploration” over the next few years, specifies the organization. The minimum amount was set at $10 million.
C-TNLOHE adds that “maritime safety and environmental protection are paramount aspects of all decisions made by the Agency”. In this context, we assure support “the measures taken by the federal and provincial governments to fight against climate change and protect important marine areas”. At the same time, it is mentioned that the region has “a number of important areas for fishermen of crabs and other species”.
More than a dozen “plots” that are offered to the oil and gas industry nevertheless “overlap” the largest marine biodiversity protection area in eastern Canada, called the Land-Northeast Slope Closure. New. This “marine refuge” was established in 2019 to help achieve the Trudeau government’s marine environment protection target.
According to the federal government, it is “an ecologically and biologically significant area that supports great diversity, including several declining species”. Any fishing activity “coming into contact with the bottom” is prohibited there, but the door is not closed for oil and gas drilling.
Carbon neutrality
In a written response, the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada (AEIC) also specifies that the plots of this call for tenders are located “in the area covered by the regional assessment [ER] Offshore Oil and Gas Exploratory Drilling East of Newfoundland and Labrador”. This assessment, which was commissioned in 2019 by the Trudeau government, led to the abolition, in June 2020, of the environmental assessment process that previously prevailed. Federal Liberals’ goal was to improve ‘efficiency in assessment process’ for projects in 735,000 km area2in a context of economic recovery in the midst of a pandemic.
Exploratory drilling now carried out in the ER area is therefore exempt from “the requirement to submit to a project-specific federal impact assessment,” says the AEIC. However, they must meet several conditions set by regulation. “The regulations codify the standard set of conditions that have been included in project-specific assessments for multiple projects in the same geographic area,” CNSA argues.
The possible completion of new exploratory drilling, in the wake of the call for tenders which ends on November 2, meets the objective of Newfoundland and Labrador to double its oil production in the marine environment after 2030 This would then reach 650,000 barrels per day, or a potential of more than 237 million barrels per year.
Does Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault believe that the increase in production would be compatible with Canada’s climate and biodiversity protection objectives? “We are not in a position to respond to a hypothetical project,” said his cabinet. “We wouldn’t approve a project that didn’t meet our objectives or that didn’t pass an evaluation. If said project destroys habitats and causes significant negative impacts, it will not be approved,” it added.
Any new oil and gas project must meet an assessment led by the AEIC and “rigorous standards”, including being carbon neutral by 2050. This carbon neutrality takes into account only the gas emissions at greenhouse effect on Canadian soil.
Risks
Despite the reassuring speeches from the CNSA and the federal government, marine biologist Lyne Morissette says she is “frankly disappointed” with the auctioning of new exploration permits off the Canadian coast. “What worries me the most right now is that the headlong rush for oil is significantly outpacing the scientific ability to document the risks of this industry. It’s like driving a Ferrari blindfolded.
According to her, the impacts for biodiversity can be numerous and severe, in particular due to the use of seismic surveys “which affect not only marine mammals, but the whole ecosystem”.
Mme Morissette adds that the threat of a spill at sea is very real. That of the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 was caused by exploratory drilling. “In colder ecosystems, like those that exist off Newfoundland, it’s even worse. Everything is in slow motion. For disasters like the Exxon Valdez tanker grounding, which took place over 30 years ago in Alaska, we still see populations of birds, fish and marine mammals that have not recovered. »
For lawyer James Gunvaldsen Klaassen of the environmental law organization Ecojustice, any exploitation project “will have disastrous impacts on our efforts to fight the climate crisis”. The organization is also challenging in the Federal Court of Appeal the decision to abolish the old environmental assessment regime for exploratory drilling.
While we do not yet know the scope of the projects that will result from the current call for tenders under the authority of C-TNLOHE, we do know that the organization is considering four other calls for tenders by 2029. A first could be launched in the spring of 2023 in “the Jeanne-d’Arc region”, which already has oil production sites.
The province’s goal is to have 100 wells completed by 2030. The Trudeau government has already approved 40 exploratory wells in 2021. Then, last spring, it authorized the Bay du Nord project. The oil company Equinor plans to drill 60 operating wells.