Councillors pan candidate’s plan

City council candidate Erle Martz said the city needs to take a more proactive approach to attract oil and gas development to the Nechako Basin.
Martz said the city should use $5 million from the Northern Development Initiative (NDI) Trust, matched by provincial and federal grants, to partner with private industry on seismic exploration of the areas resources.
“All we have to do is help them see there is oil and gas there and it’ll take care of itself,” Martz said. “We’re struggling with our forestry and we need to diversify. It’s an absolute natural at the time we need it most.”
Martz said some estimates put the Nechako Basin reserves at five billion barrels of crude oil and nine trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Those resources will eventually bring oil and gas companies looking once existing resources dry up, Martz said, but the city could jump-start the process by offering incentives for exploration.
“If we don’t promote it, it will happen eventually down the road,” Martz said. “The idea of looking for the resources at half price is the carrot we’re dangling. It’s a very good investment.”
Martz said he has worked in the oil and gas industry and has seen the kind of money oil and gas companies have brought into communities like Fort St. John.
If oil development started in the Nechako Basin, he said, Prince George would be the logical base point for companies and workers.
“Part of council’s job is inviting business into Prince George,” he said.
An oil and gas boom in the Nechako Basin would bring workers and business to Prince George, put millions -possibly billions - of dollars of oil revenues into the provincial coffers and be a profitable investment for oil and gas companies, he said.
“It’s a win, win, win situation,” Martz added. “The people who are going to invest the other half [of the oil exploration money]would make sure there is something there before they get involved. They have the experience to know what they’re looking for. It’s got a self check and balance built in.”
Councillor Don Bassermann challenged the plan, saying it is not the role of local government to fund private oil exploration.
“We’re not in a position to take city resources, in any scheme, and give them to private industry,” Bassermann said. “The industry will come to look for oil and gas, in fact some limited exploration is already underway. The interest is already there. And I think there is more than enough resources to do the exploration.”
Councillor Don Zurowski agreed, and said how council has and should continue to promote oil and gas exploration is by providing the transportation infrastructure, industrial land base and promotion of trades training. In addition, he said, the city can be an advocate for the industry to the provincial and federal government.
“I think it’s an immense opportunity,” Zurowski said. “But for us to get into the exploration business would be taking a rather cavalier attitude with our taxpayers’ money.”
Councillor Sherry Sethen said oil and gas exploration is a major opportunity, but the city, “shouldn’t put all our eggs in one basket in terms of diversification.”
Sethen said the city should create a business-friendly climate to attract oil and gas development, manufacturing and other potential industry.