In the middle of the week of the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit, the Trudeau government and that of Newfoundland and Labrador announced their intention to open thousands of additional square kilometers of marine environments to oil exploration projects. Certain identified sectors are part of a “marine refuge” set up to protect biodiversity.
After granting new exploration permits at the start of the year and launching a call for tenders to grant more over the coming months, the two levels of government are continuing their efforts to achieve the objective set by Terre -New and Labrador: double oil production in the marine environment after 2030, to reach more than 200 million barrels per year, at a time when scientists and environmentalists are pleading for an exit from fossil fuels.
The Trudeau government and that of Newfoundland and Labrador launched a “call for applications” on Tuesday targeting maritime zones located off the Canadian east coast.
This step is designed to gauge the interest of oil companies, with a view to determining the number and surface area of new exploration permits which will be auctioned over the coming months, explains biologist Sylvain Archambault, of the Société pour nature and parks.
“Marine refuge”
The targeted areas are separated into two blocks, for a total area of around 40,000 km2but by including sectors where there are already exploration permits.
Part of one block overlaps with Eastern Canada’s largest marine biodiversity protection area, called the Northeast Newfoundland Slope Closure. This “marine refuge” was established in 2019 to help achieve the federal government’s marine environment protection target. In the opinion of the federal government itself, it is “an area of ecological and biological importance that supports great diversity, including several species in decline”.
It is also not possible to use fishing gear that would come into contact with the seabed, but exploratory oil drilling can be authorized.
Earlier this year, BP obtained an exploration permit which encroaches on this biodiversity protection zone. The same oil company, responsible for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, also obtained the right to drill in this marine refuge in the spring. The results of this drilling would not have proved interesting, since the project was abandoned.
Calls for tenders
The Trudeau government and that of Newfoundland and Labrador also granted 12,227 km earlier this year2 new exploration permits in a region recognized for the richness and fragility of its ecosystems. To obtain them, the four companies concerned made exploration investment commitments totaling $238 million.
Another call for tenders was also launched this spring for an area of more than 120,000 km2 of new exploration permits. This call ends on 1er november. A total of 28 permits covering more than 72,000 km2 is located in a vast area known as “high exploration activity”, which already includes “significant discoveries” of hydrocarbons. It is also in this region that we find the Bay du Nord project, which could produce nearly a billion barrels of oil.
If the 47 permits find a buyer, this would represent a very significant jump in the area of open marine environments in search of new oil deposits. We currently have just under 50,000 km2 licenses off the Canadian coast.
Other calls for tenders could follow in the coming years, until at least 2028.