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

Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to stand in this Honourable House today to highlight the exciting news that record bids for exploration licenses offshore have been received as a result of the most recent calls for bids in the Eastern Newfoundland Region and Jeanne d’Arc Regions, both located in the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area.

In total, there was a record cumulative total of $1.38 billion in bids and a record single bid of $621 million from BHP Billiton Petroleum in the Eastern Newfoundland region. I’d like to welcome BHP to our province.

The bid process is managed by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.

The resource potential in offshore Newfoundland and Labrador is incredible. In less than 7 per cent of the province’s offshore, there is a combined resource potential of 49.2 billion barrels of oil and 193.8 trillion cubic feet of gas.

There have been eight new entrants in the past two years, and $3.9 billion in recent exploration work commitments.

Mr. Speaker, we are seeing success in our plan to drive exploration and grow the province’s offshore through Advance 2030 – The Way Forward on Oil and Gas. This success confirms Newfoundland and Labrador as a global centre of interest for the world’s oil and gas exploration companies. Thank you.