Gom Drilling Moratorium

[Emory]

are you sure the morotorium off of BC still stands? there was a ship based rig parked in vic harbour about 2 months ago, and rumour has it that they were punching exploritory wells up between the charlottes and van isl (cant remember the location exactly). i was told the morotorium had expired, but that could all be bad info. i did see the rig though...

 

Maybe they should hold off deep water drilling untill there is a reliable way to snub a well at depth, drilling a relief simply isnt adequate...

 

and is it fair to say "not on my coast, do it in someone else's backyrad," (although i fully support no drilling off our coast) when inevitabely it will go to some unregulated waters off the coast of a country where the people have no voice? (i hear africa has a huge reserve off the west coast, and other third world nations have lost almost all of their coast due to unregulated disgusting drilling practices). just a thought

[Elvis]

Intresting story here

 

http://www.wimp.com/oilspills/

[splitpin]

Intresting story here

 

http://www.wimp.com/oilspills/

 

Pay attention you old coot!!

Jeez!! Do I have to lead you old fa-ts around by the hand??

 

 

http://www.verticalmag.com/forums/index.ph...st&p=127167

[dimit]

Not on my coast, thank you very much. The riches of the coastal sea are far more sustainable than a BC off-shore oil industry.

 

DM

[MMike]

Interesting. The poll results on the front page seem rather in favour of continuing drilling operations. I can only assume that is a self preservation instinct. ....Keep the machines in the air, and whatnot.

 

And will admit, that I disagree with this position. I think that that whole gang there needs to regroup and get their #### together. And until they prove that the aforementioned #### is indeed together, then proceed. I don't think this can be a case of "innocent until proven guilty".

[kersmash]

Hey Coastal...sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the reality is there is off-shore drilling going on in our backyard on the west coast already...go flying in the gulf of alaska and you will see what i mean...

[Coastal]

Huh, wasn't aware of that. I thought all of Alaska's offshore oil was found off the north slope in the Arctic Ocean. Even if that is the case it doesn't change how I feel about oil and gas off of our coast.

 

Hey Coastal...sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the reality is there is off-shore drilling going on in our backyard on the west coast already...go flying in the gulf of alaska and you will see what i mean...

 

[kersmash]

unfortunately you thought wrong cook inlet is riddled with offshore platforms...i'm just a helicopter pilot but i would guess that if an accident happened there the west coast of B.C. would be the next florida!!!

[Over-Talk]

Some thoughts (and a few facts) on this topic...

 

The moratorium on the West Coast of BC is still in place, though it is believed by some that the Orders in Council that established it have expired and therefore the moratorium has no legal binding.

It was established by the Federal Govt. back in 1972, and covers two things....

banning tankers from some areas and banning off-shore drilling.

The tanker ban was to keep tankers that travel south from Valdez well off-shore. (However once they reach the south end of Vancouver Island they come into refineries just south of the Can/US border).

 

The BC Govt. asked the Federal Govt to rethink the moratorium in 2004, but immediately ran into such a large public outcry that the BC Govt dropped the subject before the matter went very far.

It is believed the present BC Govt still supports off-shore drilling if certain environmental safety standards were met.

 

Recently, Enbridge has discussed building a pipeline from the Alberta oil-sands projects to a proposed new terminal on the West Coast so they could ship oil to Asia. This would mean the ban on tankers near some parts of the BC Coast would have to be lifted.

Enbridge is already facing a huge uproar from groups along the proposed pipeline's route, so this terminal and it's tankers may never even become a factor.

Many coastal communities are opposed. Ironically, these communities presently rely on regular shipments of diesel from an oil barge to exist.

 

These communities also helped with the rescue of passengers from the BC Ferry that hit a rock and sank within minutes back on March 22 2006. Who says that couldn't happen again ??

 

Some oil is exported from the BC coast already. In 2009, about 25 million barrels of oil were moved by tankers from Vancouver. By the way, there was a minor (????) spill near the terminal a few weeks ago.

 

Several companies are proposing to build large wind-turbine power generating stations in the Hecate Strait off the coast of BC. The BC Govt recently looked into supporting these, but chose to support on-shore stations in the interior of the province at this time.

 

Just like oil-drilling in the same off-shore waters....the demand will dictate the price and therefore the desire (and Govt approvals) to go and get it.

It would be nice to think we will rely on wind power in the future, but if the last oil in the world is known to be just off the coast of BC..........guess what?

 

Here's some info about oil and gas in Cook Inlet, Alaska.

It was discovered around 1957.

Peak production for Cook Inlet was in 1970 at 82.9 million barrels, or approximately 223,000 barrels per day.

Cook Inlet oil production has been in steep decline for several years and current proven reserves

are projected to be depleted by 2016, unless new reserves are found and developed.

 

I don't recall the BC coast being affected by the Exxon Valdez spill which was much closer to BC than Cook Inlet. Whether a spill in Cook Inlet would make it to BC is not for us helicopter dudes to reasonably predict.

 

However with all these wild media-conspiracy theories surfacing faster than blobs of oil....who knows what may happen (or not) ??

[Coastal]

Wow, there's a good chunk of information there Over-Talk, thanks. Sounds like you are pretty interested in this topic and I would hazard are well informed...so just out of interest, do you care to share your opinion on oil development off the BC coast?