NOVA SCOTIA CANADA: THE NEXT PLAY
Board chair discusses Nova Scotia’s proactive exploration agenda
In Nova Scotia, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB) is responsible for offshore health, safety and environmental protection, industrial benefits, the issuance of licences for offshore exploration and development, as well as resource evaluation, and data collection and distribution. The Board also regulates day-to-day exploration and development activity.The CNSOPB was established in 1990, and is a joint agency of the governments of Canada and Nova Scotia. Since taking over as chair and acting CEO, Diana Dalton has signaled a strategic shift for the Board with a new focus on optimizing resource management. World Oil magazine talks with Ms. Dalton about Nova Scotia’s offshore future.
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CNSOPB chair and acting CEO,
Diana Dalton
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Question: How would you describe the Board’s new direction to reinvigorate exploration?
Answer: The Board realizes that there is a lot of proactive work that needs to be done in attracting industry. We are living in a different world than we were 20 years ago when the Board was created. We are now trying to open our offshore to companies that may not have the financial resources of larger companies, but can do early exploration work. We now understand that we need a lot more geoscience data from the offshore in order to lessen exploration risk. The more data we can collect, the better it is for industry and ourselves.
Q: What is the most significant measure that you’ve introduced that will help you achieve your goals?
A: I think it’s the fact that explorers can now enter at a much lower cost. Nova Scotia’s offshore is a high cost area of the world and by lessening the entry cost, we make it more attractive to explore.
Q: What are the recent changes to the Exploration Licensing System?
A: It’s effectively a three-year exploration licence with new terms and conditions that encourage early geoscience work. It’s very low cost to get in. At the end of three years you have the option of saying “we don’t want to pursue this” and submit the geoscience information you have collected to the Board, or you can say “we want to drill,” at which point we allow you up to six more years to evaluate the license, which includes exploration drilling.
Q: What is Nova Scotia learning from its history with the Cohasset-Panuke, SOEP, and Deep Panuke projects?
A: Our ability to deal with regulations and make more efficient day-to-day operational decisions. We have the ability to allow for new technology and everyone has learned from the process. Time is money and cutting down processes is a plus for companies. We’re now far more able to deal with myriad of applications if they come our way.
Q: What is necessary for Nova Scotia to compete in a global market?
A: We have to be more knowledgeable on an ongoing basis about petroleum exploration and development around the globe. We need to know who our competition is, and respond to it.
Q: What are the key challenges?
A: Both levels of government realize the need to be proactive. I recognize that promotion needs to come from the federal and provincial levels, and the Board can be supportive. The Sable project has given governments hundreds of millions of dollars in income tax and royalties-that’s a large amount of money in the Canadian economy. We are participative in cooperative initiatives in the development of our offshore. We’re also expanding our geoscience capabilities to do analysis and are now very sophisticated in what we’re able to provide to the industry.
Q: How do you tell industry of our new opportunities?
A: Keep at them; talk to them; and attend and present at their conferences. We’re co-chairing the Central Atlantic Conjugate Margin Conference, and that could be a positive thing to help them zero in here. It’s moving forward and addressing the information needs for the company-which is hugely expensive. If we play an effective role in providing front end geoscience, industry will save time and money so they can focus in on an area and make it easier to decide where to drill. This December, we’ll issue our Call for Bids, which is the process used to issue exploration licences.
Q: What else have you got planned for cutting red tape?
A: We’ve had prescriptive regulations that need to be changed to performance- based. It’s the board’s opinion that this needs to happen very quickly so that we are supporting the government’s efforts in this area. We recognize that forward actions in Norway, New Zealand and the UK occur in countries where they take the resource very seriously and have a strategic direction. 
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