08-07-2025
- Business
- National Observer
Nova Scotia pushes to develop offshore natural gas
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.
'Right now, all our natural gas is imported, and it flows either from or through the United States. We want to develop our own offshore natural gas to unlock this major economic opportunity for our province,' Energy Minister Trevor Boudreau said in a statement.
The rhetoric fits into a broader push by the region to significantly expand fossil fuel production. Nova Scotia's Natural Resources Minister Tory Rushton recently introduced a bill that would undo the province's moratorium on fracking. Last month, neighbouring Newfoundland and Labrador announced findings from its offshore natural gas assessment, and similarly touted the economic case for kickstarting the industry in the province, which currently has active offshore oil.
While Boudreau says natural gas should 'play a key role as we move to a low-carbon economy,' it is still a fossil fuel made mostly of methane. Methane, which is responsible for about one quarter of global warming, is over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide for the first 20 years in the atmosphere. Natural gas production is a huge source of methane leaks in Canada, and the gas also breaks down into CO2 when burned.
The call for exploration bids includes 13 parcels along the central Scotian Shelf and Slope, one of the most intensively fished areas of the Atlantic Ocean known for its abundance of marine life. Following exploration, oil and gas companies have until April 2026 to offer money to the province, which could then award them exploration licences. Following exploration, the companies can eventually apply for a production licence.
If awarded, exploration licences allow companies to conduct seismic surveys and use exploratory drilling to find oil and gas deposits. The process is harmful to marine life, carries some similar risks to full-blown extraction and ultimately leads to more oil and gas projects.
The Nova Scotia government wants to restart fossil fuel activity off the coast. The call for exploration bids includes 13 parcels along the central Scotian Shelf and Slope, one of the most fished areas of the Atlantic Ocean.
The push for natural gas development contrasts with the province's earlier moves. In 2023, Nova Scotia rejected an exploration licence bid from Inceptio Limited, a Scottish company, to explore for gas off the Scotia Shelf. The offshore board recommended the bid move forward, but Jonathan Wilkinson, then-federal natural resources minister, and Tory Rushton, Nova Scotia's minister of natural resources and renewables, announced their decision to reject the $1.5-million bid — the only one the offshore board had approved at the time. The two ministers said their decision considered the transition to clean energy.
And that wasn't the first time a bid was squashed — in 2018, exploration bids around the island faced harsh criticism and a successful bid was ultimately abandoned.
That history gives environmental advocates hope, and an example to cite.
'Any company looking to respond to this call for bids should know that Nova Scotia coastal communities and environmental groups have successfully fought them off in the past — and will do so again,' said Gretchen Fitzgerald, national programs director at Sierra Club Canada, who is based in Halifax.
The NS government's economic justification for offshore gas contrasts with a 2020 International Institute for Sustainable Development analysis, which found that after 2030, global demand for oil will start to sharply decline, and stresses that Canada needs a plan to avoid these big upfront investments becoming stranded assets.
'The thought that somehow natural gas will create energy self-sufficiency is darkly laughable, both because of the climate impacts like wildfires and hurricanes it will accelerate, making people less secure, and because of how fossil fuel markets work,' said Fitzgerald.
