The first steps have been taken toward ending a 30-year-old ban against drilling offshore of Canada’s west coast, a region projected to harbor 42 Tcf of natural gas. A technical review panel of three blue-chip experts, following months of consultations with specialists, declared there is no scientific basis for continuing the moratorium.

After canvassing the region with extended hearings, a political committee of six members of the Liberal government side in the British Columbia legislature found the raw material for fashioning good will towards the gas industry: “All citizens, regardless of their position on the issue, have a desire to work together and bring about economic renewal on the coast,” the panel said.

While B.C. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld held back from making an immediate decision to scrap the drilling ban, he made it plain the provincial government intends to press ahead on moves needed to take the action. Neufeld committed C$2 million (US$1.25 million) to start further environmental research and craft a work plan for responding to both reports. Neufeld said “the potential for safe, scientifically sound exploration has been confirmed.”

He acknowledged the sensitivity of the issue among B.C.’s high population of environmentalists and native-rights advocates: “Clearly there is much more work to be done before any decision to allow exploration or development can proceed.” He also underlined the other side of the question — the potential industrial gains to offset severe slumps in the west coast’s traditional mainstays of forest products, fishing and mining. “An offshore oil and gas industry could create enormous economic benefits for British Columbians.” The B.C. energy minister vowed to “be guided by sound science and an unswerving commitment to responsible environmental protection.”

The scientific tribunal — prominent academics David Strong of Victoria, Patricia Gallagher of Vancouver and Derek Muggeridge from the Okanagan region — suggested B.C. has a good chance of having that cake of green correctness and dining out on its offshore gas resources too. The scientists reported, “Although the region is subject to intense storms as well as seismic (earthquake) activity, present engineering knowledge, technology, industry practice and regulatory regimes can ensure that structures necessary for drilling and production activities are constructed to survive any foreseeable natural threats and to operate within acceptable standards.”

Strong, Gallagher and Muggeridge concluded that “while there are certainly gaps in knowledge and needs for intensification of research as well as for a commitment to building comprehensive baseline information systems and to long-term monitoring, these do not preclude responsible deliberations on the questions related to offshore oil and gas exploration and development. There is no inherent or fundamental inadequacy of science or technology, properly applied in an appropriate regulatory framework, to justify a blanket moratorium on such activities.”

The political panel reported encountering no surprises. Fishermen, native communities and environmentalists voiced fear of offshore industrial activity, but rarely in such a dogmatic fashion as to rule it out under properly controlled conditions and in a way that ensures benefits are spread around.

Civic leaders, including a pro-drilling coalition, called gas development prospects a cure for regional economic sorrows that have been gradually worsened for years as fishing and forestry deteriorated.

Drilling offshore of British Columbia dates back to 1949. Just enough wells had been tried by the time the moratorium was imposed in 1972 to convince the industry and the Geological Survey of Canada that the region has a rich resource endowment. The last estimate by the GSC counted 42 Tcf of gas in four sedimentary basins: 25.9 Tcf (and 9.8 billion barrels of oil) around the Queen Charlotte Islands, plus 15.9 Tcf in the Tofina, Winona and Georgia basins farther south.

Besides further environmental and community relations work, the new West Coast gas agenda includes development of an integrated federal and provincial regulatory framework akin to the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board. Also rated as essential is a counterpart to the federal-provincial accords on revenue sharing and resource management that opened up Canada’s East Coast to oil and gas development.

On the West Coast, the technical panel and political committee alike said a further agreement will be necessary with native communities, which lay extensive territorial claims to the region and have won a string of high court decisions saying they are entitled to consideration.

Within the industry, no immediate moves were made to rush the process. But production companies such as Petro-Canada and Chevron Canada Resources continue to hold extensive drilling prospects under frozen leases in the region. Geologists have resumed studying it, and the governments have been encouraged to open it up.

West Coast formations are described as complex but promising, and too little known as a result as the long gap in exploration. The scientific tribunal observed that the moratorium has been a matter of policy rather than formal legislation that would have to be repealed. The panel suggested the industry should be encouraged to declare some intentions as a way to move ahead the process of reopening the offshore region: “The concerns with this `current moratorium’ are all procedural and perceptual, not scientific or technical. The sooner the province can move on to careful consideration of concrete proposals from identifiable proponents, the sooner we will get into constructive assessment of the issues based on the scientific, social and ethical realities of the sea in its actual setting.”

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