May 21, 2010

Offshore rules tougher

BP spill sees Canada tighten standards

By Markus Ermisch, Calgary Sun

Canada is toughening rules for drilling off Canada’s Atlantic coast.

The waters off B.C., however, remain murky in a legalistic sense.

A federal-provincial regulator said Thursday it’s increasing oversight of a well Chevron is drilling off Canada’s East Coast.

The new rules are a direct result of the explosion of a BP Plc rig in the Gulf of Mexico last month, which caused a massive oil spill in the region.

They require Chevron to provide test results of the blowout preventer of its deepwater exploratory well in the Orphan Basin off the coast of Newfoundland. A blowout preventer is the same piece of equipment that failed when the BP rig exploded, causing crude to flow unchecked into the Gulf.

Chevron will be required to post daily reports to the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. “We did that in response to the concerns that people have about deepwater drilling,” said Sean Kelly, the board’s spokesman.

The tougher rules would be applied to subsequent such deepwater projects.

“I would expect that if we were to get a second application, that yes, we would expect the same level of oversight,” Kelly said.

NDP energy critic Nathan Cullen said the “direction” of the new rules is good.

However, deepwater drilling in the Orphan Basin should not proceed until an investigation finds out what led to the accident, he said.

In his Skeena-Bulkley Valley riding, Cullen is dealing with a different aspect of Canada’s energy industry.

Enbridge Inc.‘s plans to build an oil pipeline from the oilsands to an export terminal in Kitimat means oil tankers could make their way to the B.C. coast within the next decade.

Cullen opposes the project.

“The risk would be significant because mistakes are made,” he said, noting the waters off B.C. are a “tough place to sail.”

Cullen and other opponents of the Enbridge pin some of their hopes that the project will fail based on a moratorium on oil tanker traffic off the B.C. coast.

But there’s a problem. No written record of the moratorium, said to be in place since 1972, exists. Cullen said it dates back to a “policy directive in cabinet” that was never written down.

“It was de facto government policy,” he said.

Neither Enbridge nor Natural Resources Canada could be reached for comment.