When Premier Danny Williams killed plans to develop a 300 million barrel oil field within the Hibernia project, some wondered what might become of Husky Energy's plans to bring an additional 25 million barrels on stream from its White Rose field.
The development plan amendment containing the new project could be taken by some - like St. John's Mayor Andy Wells and Premier Danny Williams - as an excuse to force Husky and Petro-Canada to negotiate new local benefits.
Wells has long been a critic of floating production systems, favouring instead the short-term jobs that would come from expensive gravity-based concrete platforms. So-called GBS platforms would be unnecessary to develop fields like Terra Nova and White Rose on a successful commercial basis, but were an integral part of the make-work approach some within the Peckford administration took to oil and gas development 25 years ago.
An excellent backgrounder can be found at The Telegram, courtesy of Moira Baird.
Public consultation documents on the White Rose development plan amendment can be found at the offshore regulatory board's website.