Amendment Enables Crown Share Payments

A proposed amendment to Nova Scotia's Offshore Accord Act gives the province access to information used to calculate Crown Share Adjustment payments from Ottawa.

The changes enable the Minister of Energy to request and receive project information from offshore operators and interest holders, information that is used to determine future Crown Share adjustment payments to Nova Scotia from Ottawa.

"We have been operating under an agreement with the federal government about how the Crown Share Adjustment would be calculated for a number of years now," said Energy Minister Charlie Parker. "This amendment ensures that we have the appropriate administrative tools for managing one of the key revenue sources from our offshore oil and gas industry."

The amendment provides the province with regulation-making authority that mirrors provisions already in place under the federal version of the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act. It enables the minister of energy to request and receive information from offshore operators and interest holders.

As part of the 1988 Accord agreeing to joint management of the offshore, the government of Canada committed to make ongoing Crown Share Adjustment payments to the province. The detailed mechanism for doing this was not included in the accord, however, leading to a long-term disagreement between the two levels of government on the amounts owed.

The governments appointed a joint, independent three-member panel to make recommendations on the matter, and those recommendations were endorsed by both parties on July 13, 2008.

Crown Share Adjustment payments are made to Nova Scotia on an annual basis. Payments to date have totalled $408 million. Payment values of $33 million and $26.7 million respectively are forecast for 2010-2011 and 2011-12 fiscal years.