Ottawa, Nova Scotia veto $1.5-million offshore oil exploration bid by company
BNN Bloomberg
A coalition of environmental and community groups are applauding a decision by the Nova Scotia and federal governments to deny a $1.5-million bid to relaunch oil and gas exploration in the waters off the province.
The licence application by Inceptio Limited for a shallow-water parcel on the Sable Bank of the Scotian Shelf was approved by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board in October. However, the bid was subject to the approval of the federal and provincial ministers of natural resources, who ruled against it in a decision released late Monday.
Had it been approved, Inceptio’s bid would have renewed oil and gas exploration efforts off Nova Scotia. In 2018, production was permanently shut down at ExxonMobil’s Sable Offshore Energy Project and at Encana’s Deep Panuke project, which were the province’s only producing offshore natural gas fields.
In an interview Tuesday, Gretchen Fitzgerald, of the Sierra Club Foundation, called the ministerial veto “a really wise decision by our elected leaders."
