Several weeks after Quebec’s new Liberal government pledged a measured and responsible development of the hydrocarbon industry, the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources discreetly issued a Ministerial Order that establishes a prescriptive regime for oil and gas exploration on the province’s biggest island, sending a clear signal to the business world that the province is open for business in the energy sector.
Adopted in late June under the Quebec Mining Act, the prescriptive regime spells out the rules and conditions for oil and gas exploration work on the remote and sparsely populated Anticosti Island, which is owned almost entirely by the Quebec government except for a small village of 240 people. Core analysis taken from the Macasty shale formation on Anticosti Island revealed that it potentially holds between 30 billion and 50 billion barrels of oil, making it the largest oil resource in Quebec. The oil reserves, however, can be untapped only through hydraulic fracturing, which blasts chemically laced water to break rock containing oil or gas.
The prescriptive regime, which came as a surprise to industry legal experts, will likely prove to be the precursor of a wider framework that will apply to any oil and gas exploration activities that may be carried out in the future elsewhere in Quebec, according to Jean Piette, a senior partner and chair of the environmental law group at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP.