OUR GREAT MINDS

    by Tina Olivero

    World Leading Exploration Site: A Paradise For Pioneers

    One of the most significant offshore opportunities in history is happening right now offshore Newfoundland and Labrador.

    The Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NOPB) has released a scheduled land tenure system for the province’s offshore oil industry. The opportunities are immense, the offshore land resources are up for sale, and there’s an effective and trustworthy system for investing in this region.

    “The new scheduled land tenure system positions Newfoundland and Labrador with the leading exploration jurisdictions in the world,” said Jim Keating, vice president, Nalcor Energy – Oil and Gas.

    A scheduled land tenure system, developed by the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NOPB), improves the investment climate of the offshore by improving transparency, predictability, and input. The system provides additional time for exploration companies to conduct geoscientific assessments of the hydrocarbon prospectivity in the lesser explored basins of the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore arena.

    Companies may then nominate Areas of Interest, which may be included in a Call for Bids. The system will now operate in four-year, two-year and one-year cycles and is designed to take into account variances in the volume of data collection in basins and geoscientific knowledge.

    Under the new system, the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area will be subdivided into three categories based on level of oil and gas activity. Low Activity regions generally have few exploratory wells and limited seismic data acquisition. High Activity regions typically have elevated activity levels including 2D and 3D seismic data acquisition and exploration drilling. A Mature region would have substantial 2D and 3D seismic data coverage, in addition to extensive exploration/delineation drilling and production activities.

    The Different Time Cycles And The Schedules Are As Follows:

    • The four-year cycle will be implemented for all regions that fall within the Low Activity category. In this cycle, a Call for Nominations (Areas of Interest) will be announced in the fall of the year and the Call for Bids (Parcels) will close in the fall, four years later. This cycle will be announced every two years and will provide interested parties with as much as 48 months to explore and assess the region.
    • The two-year cycle is designed for regions classified as High Activity. In this cycle, a Call for Nominations (Areas on Interest) will be announced in the fall of the year and the Call for Bids (Parcels) will close in the fall, two years later. This cycle will be announced every year and will provide interested parties with as much as 24 months to explore and assess the location defined in the call.
    • The one-year cycle will be maintained for the Mature region. As has been the case in the past, a Call for Nominations (Areas of Interest) in the Mature region (e.g., the Jeanne d’Arc Basin) may go out every year in the fall, the Call for Bids (Parcels) will be announced in the spring of the following year, and the Call for Bids (Parcels) will close in the fall of the same year. This cycle will proceed annually based on nominations from interested parties and assessment by the C-NLOPB.
    • The one-year cycle will also be maintained for any lands not publicly announced in the scheduled system. Any Call for Nominations (Areas of Interest) and Call for Bids (Parcels) will proceed annually based on industry nominations and assessments by the C-NLOPB. This model will mirror the schedule discussed for the Mature region.

    Effective immediately, for licences under the new system, “allowable expenditures” are defined as those respecting an exploration licence incurred from the initial announcement of the Call for Nominations (Areas of Interest) for that scheduled round, up to and including the effective date of an exploration licence issued from that round. This is in addition to the traditional allowable expenditure terms and conditions which can be found in the sample exploration licences offered in the Calls for Bids 2013 on the C-NLOPB website.

    Keating said, “Nalcor’s geoscience program is opening new frontier basins in our offshore areas and is capturing the attention of the international oil and gas industry. Now, with scheduled land sales, we are providing these global players with the time they require to assess the data, make plans for exploration and then submit competitive bids according to those plans.”

    The land tenure system encourages exploration in frontier areas and allows adequate time for new seismic data to be acquired over prospective regions prior to licence rounds, thereby informing the investment decisions of the global oil and gas industry. That makes investing in the region predictable, reliable and secure.

    To learn more about the land sales offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, visit: http://www.cnlopb.nl.ca/news/nr20130516.shtml.

    Tina Olivero

    30 years ago, Tina Olivero looked into the future and saw an opportunity to make a difference for her province and people. That difference came in the form of the oil and gas sector. Six years before there was even a drop of oil brought to the shores of Newfoundland, she founded The Oil and Gas Magazine (THE OGM) from a back room in her home on Signal Hill Road, in St. John’s, Newfoundland. A single mother, no financing, no previous journalism or oil and gas experience, she forged ahead, with a creative vision and one heck of a heaping dose of sheer determination. With her pioneering spirit, Ms. Olivero developed a magazine that would educate, inspire, motivate and entertain oil and gas readers around the world — She prides herself in marketing and promoting our province and resources in unprecedented ways. The OGM is a magazine that focuses on our projects, our people, our opportunities and ultimately becomes the bridge to new energy outcomes and a sustainable new energy world. Now diversifying into the communications realms, a natural progression from the Magazine, The OGM now offers an entirely new division - Oil & Gas Media. Today, The Oil and Gas Magazine is a global phenomenon that operates not only in Newfoundland, but also in Calgary and is read by oil and gas enthusiasts in Norway, Aberdeen, across the US and as far reaching as Abu Dhabi, in the Middle East. Believing that Energy is everyone’s business, Ms. Olivero has combined energy + culture to embrace the worlds commitment to a balance of work and home life as well as fostering a foundation for health and well being. In this era of growth and development business and lifestyle are an eloquent mix, there is no beginning or end. Partnering with over 90 oil and gas exhibitions and conferences around the world, Ms. Olivero's role as a Global Visionary is to embrace communication in a way that fosters oil and gas business and industry growth in new and creative ways.

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