Natural Resources committee  Obviously we understand that we're in a transitioning economy. Oil and gas as we know it, depending on which analysts or what crystal ball view you take, may have decades of opportunity. My interest is like, again, the Norwegian interest. Norway has found a great duality. It is a leader in climate change and climate change technology and innovation and renewable science and renewable energy.

Natural Resources committee  In short form, for a real market share, if you will, of that $100 billion for Canada, for our geography, for our frontier, a place along the curve, we should be targeting 4% or 5% of that market share, realistically. We're getting less than half of 1% today. The bids in the last couple of years indicate that trajectory can be met if we continue to get companies interested and bidding at that level.

Natural Resources committee  Here are a couple of examples. We've been working very closely now, in the last several weeks, with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. As we understand it, they have a parallel process. They're drawing maps, and we are drawing maps. We are drawing maps of where the oil and gas should be, and they're drawing maps of where oceans need to be protected.

Natural Resources committee  On the good hand, it's a laissez-faire approach to encouraging private sector investments. You make the rules, you step back, and you let the best of the private sector find the right opportunities. That works well, but only if you have a significant cluster of participants with some common resource knowledge.

Natural Resources committee  The push-back is usually from the pioneering companies, because as they see it, they're the first movers and they have the knowledge, so competition is probably not something they would appreciate. However, I think invariably most of those first movers do appreciate competition, as they have embraced it now, over the last couple of years, mostly because it's a sharing of risk.

Natural Resources committee  Just last year, studies ranked Newfoundland and Labrador's offshore as fourth-best in the world in terms of all oil and gas attractions. We're very happy about our position in terms of competitiveness. However, in recent months, we've gotten a pretty big setback, and this has been in an area that is topical now in Houston, where I go to meetings.

Natural Resources committee  In provincial governments, particularly in the offshore, because it's jointly managed, it's a facilitator. All the rules are in place to acquire any and all manner of data. That's one thing that I think Canada does well. It has provisions in the legislation and regulations to acquire all sorts of data.

Natural Resources committee  I'll be brief. Transparency on data is so important. In particular, if you have an industry that has pioneering companies that have been here for 20 and 30 years and have largely been the first movers, have invested a lot, have amassed their own data trove, then by all means they should be enabled and thanked for that level of investment.

Natural Resources committee  One of the more sensitive aspects of any discussion around data.... You mentioned operational data, CO2 emissions and so forth. I will address that briefly first. The oil and gas industry realizes that it actually only uses 3% to 5% of all the operational data. As you produce oil or gas, there are all these sensors and recorders and transmitters and whatnot in all these offshore and onshore facilities, but we only really utilize a small percentage, so we're overloaded with data.

Natural Resources committee  It's very modest. We have just 16 people responsible for this exploration strategy. Through just 16 people, we've now levered about a quarter of a billion dollars in partner investments. For us, 16 people is about the right number, because we are kind of sized to our offshore. Of course, if you're expanding offshore, you expand the work scope.

Natural Resources committee  It varies around the world. Every country has some commonalities, but in most cases it's driven around precompetitive data provision. Effectively, precompetitive data provision is a country going forward and saying “here is our data catalogue”, in whatever shape or form it is. If you want to attract investment, this data catalogue has to be readily accessible, be easy to use and search, and be of high quality.

Natural Resources committee  Sure.

Natural Resources committee  One of the basic principles of geoscience gathering and licensed concession-making that is common in all offshore jurisdictions—and Canada and Norway are no different—is that when a government gives licence and access to its resources, to its land, it gives an exclusive right to explore and develop for resource extraction.

Natural Resources committee  All those rules are in place today. It's just that the opportunity is being missed.

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely. Again, it's a simple database. We work with many service providers to populate the database. This is data that's common to all jurisdictions. It is just people in the business understanding the relevance of certain data and making it available in a format that users will appreciate and value.