Ottawa’s $320 million in new subsidies for Newfoundland offshore not enough for Husky to restart West White Rose project
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Both Husky and the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial government have been in talks with the federal government for aid for months leading up to Husky’s announced review of the project.
“Although it has taken us a great deal of time to get to today, we welcome the support of the Government of Canada and this investment in our offshore,” Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industries Association (NOIA) CEO Charlene Johnson said in a release following O’Regan’s announcement.
Johnson said the industry will now shift its attention to working with the provincial government “and to make progress on other important issues that can get people back to work.”
Similarly, NOIA board chair Karen Wilson called the funding announcement Friday “a good starting point.”
A Sept. 10 Royal Bank of Canada report projected Newfoundland and Labrador would post a 10.9 per cent drop in real GDP, the sharpest economic contraction among the provinces, more than two points worse than the next province, is Alberta, which will suffer an 8.7 per cent contraction.
“Oil-producing provinces had it worse throughout the crisis,” RBC economists wrote in the report. “They’ve been walloped by the double whammy of the pandemic’s massive economic disruption and plunging oil prices pummelling the energy sector.”
“While we expect growth to resume next year, it will likely take years to recover the ground lost.”
Financial Post
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