February 19, 2025

KMCKrell

Taste the Home & Environment

ExxonMobil gives up B.C. offshore oil exploration permits

ExxonMobil gives up B.C. offshore oil exploration permits

Vancouver –

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Environmental teams are celebrating right after ExxonMobil relinquished offshore oil and fuel exploration permits in British Columbia dating back again far more than 50 years.

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Law firm Ian Miron with Ecojustice Canada claimed the enterprise experienced been dropped from a Federal Court lawsuit filed by the David Suzuki Foundation and Entire world Wildlife Fund Canada very last yr complicated the Canadian government’s continuous renewal of the permits.

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Miron, who represents the two teams, mentioned the permits formerly held by Exxon protected “really environmentally substantial areas” off the B.C. coast.

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ExxonMobil spokeswoman Margot Bruce-O’Connell verified the company gave up nine permits it held in B.C. but refused to remark more.

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Miron said the groups’ legal challenge stays active in opposition to Chevron Canada, which also holds very long-standing permits in the province.

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He reported a “policy-primarily based moratorium” prohibits oil and gas exploration in marine guarded locations off the B.C. coast, but it really is not lawfully binding and the existence of the permits undermines environmental security and conservation attempts.

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“It can be lifted at any time. It can be topic to modify at the whims of the government of the day,” Miron claimed. “The concern was that the fact that these permits exist, they are impeding the entire conservation of those spots, and there was a chance that they could have opened them up and gone in to drill.”

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Miron mentioned the driving issue powering the court docket motion is that a plan-primarily based moratorium will not fully protect ecologically sensitive areas on the B.C. coastline including Queen Charlotte Sound and the Hecate Strait.

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“Drilling is a risk at some position,” he said. “These have been recognized as seriously important, ecologically important parts and they should be absolutely protected, and they are not at the moment absolutely guarded.”

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Jay Ritchlin, B.C. and western director-basic for the David Suzuki Foundation, said in a assertion the relinquishment by ExxonMobil “is an encouraging shift.”

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“Oil and gas leases have no location in B.C.’s offshore. Now is the time for Chevron and other permit holders to follow suit,” Ritchlin stated.

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Representatives from Chevron Canada did not promptly answer to requests for remark.

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In July 2022, the David Suzuki Basis and Entire world Wildlife Fund Canada filed an software in Federal Courtroom claiming the minister of organic resources wrongfully prolonged the terms of oil and fuel permits owned by the firms.

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The permits slide inside the Scott Islands Guarded Maritime Spot and the Hecate Strait/Queen Charlotte Sound Glass Sponge Reefs Marine Protected Spot.

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The environmental teams declare in court that the indefinite extensions of the terms of people permits are illegal and contravene the Canada Petroleum Sources Act.

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“Both safeguarded places are of superb ecological worth and vulnerable to damage from human impacts, which include oil and gas routines,” the courtroom application states.

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The permits were being at first issued in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the framework to issue them was altered two times in 1980s.

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When the regulations altered, allow holders like Chevron and ExxonMobil were being intended to negotiate with the minister of pure methods to transform them into exploration licences “within a prescribed time.”

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“They did not do so,” the environmental groups assert. “To this day, the permits have not been transformed into exploration licences.”

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The David Suzuki Basis and WWF Canada allege the permits should thus be surrendered.

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With ExxonMobil relinquishing its permits, the business has been dropped as a respondent from the courtroom scenario, but it stays lively in opposition to Chevron, the minister of natural methods and the Lawyer Typical of Canada.

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Miron claims offshore oil and gas exploration in British Columbia has been an “open issue for the earlier quite a few many years.”

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He suggests the acceptance of the Bay du Nord oil task off Newfoundland last year by the federal federal government signifies that the B.C. coast is not immune to oil and gasoline activity considering the fact that the existing moratorium could one particular working day be lifted.

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“There is a degree of pain with the finality of that moratorium and that problem is sort of driving the action in this article,” he stated.

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This report by The Canadian Push was first revealed March 10, 2023.