Shell drilling in Nova Scotia 'inherently safe,' offshore expert says

A professional engineer who now administers training programs for the oil and gas sector at Cape Breton University has confidence that Shell and BP are equipped to handle a blowout in the Shelburne Basin.

Lucia MacIsaac told CBC Cape Breton's Information Morning host Steve Sutherland that a Gulf of Mexico-type blowout is unlikely.

Both companies have received approval to explore for oil from the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board.

They are required to cap any blowout within 12 or 13 days.

The Ecology Action Centre in Halifax and fishermen in the area of the exploration are concerned that the time frame is too long.

MacIsaac said the 2010 blowout at the BP drilling well Deepwater Horizon that pumped nearly five million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico "is on everyone's mind and it's a very hard image for people to shake."

She said, though, "you have to put your faith in companies, that they've learned from the mistakes of the past."

'Inherently safe design'

MacIsaac said the process required to gain permission to drill is a painstaking one, and includes stringent safety protocols.

"It starts with the inherently safe design," she said. "So as companies take a look at each of their drilling prospects, they will go through and design the well to make sure that they can mitigate all of those risks."

MacIsaac said the drilling vessel itself is a "proven, heavy-duty vessel suitable for our weather conditions" and the companies also "work with crews that are experienced in that."

In addition, said MacIsaac, drilling ships have blowout preventers on board.

Coupled with standard operating procedures and emergency response plans, MacIsaac said, those protocols should be enough to respond to an emergency.

The Ecology Action Centre, though, is concerned that a final piece of equipment to stop a blowout, a capping stack, is not required at the drilling site.

In the event of a blowout, MacIsaac said, "and again, it goes to: the inherently safe design has to fail, the standard operating procedures have to fail, the mud has to be overcome by the pressures down below and the BOP stacks that they have, which is multiple, would have to fail. 

"So in the case of multiple, multiple, multiple failures, and there is an uncontrolled release of hydrocarbons that do catch on fire, a capping stack is brought in to have an enclosure over the entire well."

There will not be a capping stack in Nova Scotia during the drilling; the nearest one would be available from Brazil or Norway in a matter of days.