Nova Scotia's new offshore call-for-bids

Larry Hughes, 2025
AllNovaScotia.com
10 July 2025

My how times change.

In December 2023, Nova Scotia's minister of natural resources and renewables, Tory Rushton, and former federal minister of natural resources, Jonathan Wilkinson, announced their joint decision to reject a $1.5-million bid from the Scottish company, Inceptio Limited, for an offshore natural gas exploration licence on the Scotian Shelf. The licence had been approved by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board in October 2023.

The decision was taken as part of both governments' "... shared commitments to advance clean energy and pursue economic opportunities in the clean energy sector, which are beyond the scope of the board's regulatory purview".

Now we learn that the new Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator is calling for bids to explore 13 parcels of the Scotian Shelf, not for wind, but for natural gas.

This shouldn't come as a surprise.

In October 2023, during the debate on Bill C-49 (An Act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Atlantic Accord Implementation Act and the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act), Martin Champoux, the Bloc Québécois MP representing Drummond in Quebec noted that:

"As I read this bill, it struck me as a great way to conceal malicious intentions around oil and gas development.

"Wind energy is great. Saying that we are going to produce green hydrogen is great. That is the positive side of the bill. However, is it not true that the bill sugar-coats a bitter pill?

"The bill appears to promote wind energy, but is it not true that its real intention is to allow twice as much offshore oil and gas production and development down the road, as announced soon after this bill was introduced?"

M. Champoux was right, replacing the old Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board with the new Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Energy Regulator gives the provincial government more flexibility in its decision making because "energy" can refer to wind.

Or natural gas.

Or crude oil.