Call for nominations issued for areas offshore Newfoundland

The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) has issued a call for the submission of nominations of areas of interest located in the Eastern Newfoundland region.

Call for nominations, labeled as NL18-CFN01 – Eastern Newfoundland, will assist the C-NLOPB in selecting a sector for introduction into the scheduled land tenure system.

The C-NLOPB said on Wednesday that the nomination submissions or comments regarding the call for nominations must be submitted before April 25, 2018. The sector identification announcement will be made in June 2018.

The call for nominations for areas of interest comes days after the C‐NLOPB announced a modification to the scheduled land tenure system in relation to the timing of the high activity (2‐year) and low activity (4‐year) land tenure cycles.

Namely, the high activity call for nominations for areas of interest was moved to January or February of the year instead of the fall.

The low activity call for nominations for parcels announcement was moved to August or September instead of the winter while the parcel nomination announcements for the mature region remained unchanged (August/September).

Safety and environmental protection

According to the Board, offshore safety and environmental protection were paramount in all of its decisions. The Eastern Newfoundland Region was included in the Eastern Newfoundland Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) concluded by the C-NLOPB in 2014.

The SEA examined the environmental effects that may be associated with a plan, program, or policy proposal related to oil and gas activities in the region.

The C-NLOPB added it would not approve any offshore petroleum-related activity until an operator demonstrates that it had met all legislative and regulatory requirements and had reduced risks to levels that are as low as reasonably practicable.

Project-specific environmental assessments that focus on site-specific issues within defined boundaries must be completed before any proposed petroleum-related activities can be undertaken.

For any lands entirely or partially beyond Canada’s 200 nautical mile zone, additional terms and conditions may be applied, either through legislation, regulations, amendments to licenses, or otherwise, to any resulting license from a call for bids to meet obligations under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.