With the decommissioning of the Sable Offshore Energy Project and Deep Panuke, offshore gas is no longer being produced in Nova Scotia. Even though we have an estimated 120 trillion cubic feet of natural gas offshore, Nova Scotia’s natural gas supply now comes via pipeline from 2 main regions – Northeastern U.S. and Western Canada. Despite having such substantial reserves, when we import the natural gas we use every day we aren’t reducing emissions, we’re exporting jobs.
The Sable Offshore Energy Project created an average of 3,200 jobs in its first 12 years of operation. These were skilled, high-paying jobs that we have an opportunity to bring back to our province and help make a difference in our communities.
Nova Scotia received nearly $4 billion in payments over 20 years from Sable. That’s roughly the same as what is needed to build 125 high schools or 1,250 kilometres of twinned highway. On top of that, the project spent billions more on goods and services in our small businesses, helping them develop products and expertise that they continue to export to this day.
Global demand for energy continues to grow rapidly as more and more countries reopen, with certain forms of energy even surpassing their pre-COVID demand levels. As we all work towards a lower-carbon future, the world still needs responsibly-produced energy to meet the growing demand for decades. Natural gas is among the cleanest burning forms of energy in the world. If we don’t develop our natural resources, other countries will develop theirs to meet growing needs. With Canada’s commitment to environmental excellence, don’t we have a responsibility to ensure the energy the world consumes is responsibly produced? This is how we can make a difference in the global fight to reduce emissions.
We can capture this opportunity and enjoy all its benefits. We’ve done it before and we can do it again. But we need to take action.
