Provincial Funding to Help Lab Attract Investors

A provincial investment will help ensure that international investors, academics and researchers have access to online information about Nova Scotia's offshore geology in the most useful format possible.

The province is investing $1 million in new online delivery models and building expansion at the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board's laboratory and storage facility.

Energy Minister Bill Dooks is confident the work -- which will increase storage and public viewing areas and help convert paper copies of seismic and drilling information into digital data -- will stimulate exploration and investor interest.

"Good information is key to attracting offshore exploration investments," said Mr. Dooks. "By making this information available to a wider audience, we are promoting our tremendous potential and making a first-class laboratory even better."

The board maintains a large amount of data related to offshore geology in its data archive, core storage and laboratory facility, known as the core lab. The lab includes a library of drilling cores from almost 200 offshore wells. The vast majority of the information is stored on paper or microfilm and is difficult for researchers to access. The board will use the grant to expand its core lab and upgrade its capacity to manage digital information.

"The Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board core lab is an invaluable research facility for academics, industry and government," said Diana Dalton, board chair. "This investment in the lab will benefit all those working to increase scientific knowledge and further the sustainable development of the offshore industry."

A renovation of the core lab will provide:

• additional storage space for core samples, well data
  and archival information;
• doubling of the viewing area for researchers, investors
  and the public; and
• creation of a digital management centre.