The following statement was given today in the House of Assembly by the Honourable Siobhan Coady, Minister of Natural Resources:

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to announce that the Provincial Government has launched a virtual data room for offshore Newfoundland and Labrador which can be found online at www.zebradata.com.

This world class virtual data room includes well data, seismic data, and drilling reports. Zebra Data Services, headquartered in London, is providing support as the service provider. There is no cost to government as the service is user-pay.

The virtual data room is an initiative of Advance 2030 – The Way Forward on Oil and Gas, which was developed to position Newfoundland and Labrador as a globally preferred location for oil and gas development. I’d like to recognize officials at the Department of Natural Resources who have worked diligently on the virtual data room initiative to ensure its successful delivery.

Mr. Speaker, the province currently has five producing fields, more than 650 leads and prospects, and 20 basins identified. There have been seven new entrants in the past two years, and $2.6 billion in recent exploration work commitments.

We are working hard to drive success in our offshore – creating thousands of jobs in the province on projects such as the West White Rose Project with an estimated 5,000 person years of construction employment and 250 permanent platform positions once operational; and the recently announced Bay du Nord project with approximately 11,000 person years of employment expected over the life of the project.

Mr. Speaker, the virtual data room is just the latest example of that hard work.

Thank you.