The Nova Scotia government wants to restart fossil fuel activity off the coast. The province says its portion of the Atlantic Ocean, known for whales, dolphins, seals and seabirds, is also home to significant natural gas resources.
“Currently, all of our natural gas is imported and flows from or through the United States. We want to develop our own offshore natural gas to take advantage of this significant economic opportunity for our province,” Energy Minister Trevor Boudreau said in a statement.
This rhetoric is part of a broader push in the region to significantly expand fossil fuel production. Nova Scotia Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton recently introduced a bill that would repeal the provincial moratorium on fracking. Last month, neighboring Newfoundland and Labrador announced the results of its offshore natural gas assessment and similarly touted the economic case for boosting the industry in the province, which currently has active offshore oil.
While Boudreau asserts that natural gas should “play a key role in the transition to a low-carbon economy,” it remains a fossil fuel composed primarily of methane. Methane, responsible for approximately one-quarter of global warming, is more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide during its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Natural gas production is a major source of methane leaks in Canada, and this gas also breaks down into CO2 when burned.
The call for exploration proposals includes 13 parcels along the Scotian Shelf and Central Slope, one of the most heavily fished areas in the Atlantic Ocean, known for its abundant marine life. Following exploration, oil and gas companies have until April 2026 to provide funding to the province, which could grant them exploration licenses. After exploration, companies can apply for a production license.
If granted, exploration licenses allow companies to conduct seismic surveys and use exploratory drilling to find oil and gas deposits. The process is harmful to marine life, carries risks similar to those of large-scale extraction, and ultimately leads to more oil and gas projects.
The Nova Scotia government wants to restart fossil fuel activity on the coast. The call for exploration proposals includes 13 parcels along the Scotia Shelf and Central Slope, one of the most heavily fished areas in the Atlantic Ocean.
The push for natural gas development contrasts with the province's previous efforts. In 2023, Nova Scotia rejected an exploration license bid from Inceptio Limited, a Scottish company, to explore for gas on the Scotia Shelf. The Offshore Exploration Board recommended that the bid proceed, but Jonathan Wilkinson, then federal minister of natural resources, and Tory Rushton, Nova Scotia's minister of natural resources and renewable energy, announced their decision to reject the $1.5 million bid, the only one the board had approved at the time. Both ministers stated that their decision considered the transition to clean energy.
And this wasn't the first time a bid was rejected: in 2018, exploration bids on the island faced harsh criticism, and a successful bid was ultimately abandoned.
This story gives hope to environmental advocates and is a noteworthy example.
"Any company wishing to participate in this call for bids should know that Nova Scotia's coastal communities and environmental groups have successfully combated these issues in the past, and will do so again," said Gretchen Fitzgerald, national program director for the Halifax-based Sierra Club Canada.
The Nova Scotia government's economic justification for offshore gas contrasts with a 2020 analysis by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, which concluded that after 2030, global oil demand will begin to decline dramatically and emphasizes that Canada needs a plan to prevent these large initial investments from becoming stranded assets.
“The idea that natural gas will somehow create energy self-sufficiency is profoundly ridiculous, both because of the climate impacts, such as wildfires and hurricanes it will accelerate, which will reduce people's safety, and because of the functioning of fossil fuel markets,” Fitzgerald said.
