Fracking safe says ISPQ
The Quebec Institute of Public Health has released a report confirming there is little risk of hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater. It confirms the information from industry. It is consistent with evidence given at the BAPE. It is also what the independent reports in America have said. Questerre has always said it was a myth started […]
Peanut Butter Moratorium
This guy so gets it. Watch this video. Tell your friends to watch this video. Tell them to tell their friends to watch this video. If everyone watches this video I won’t need to blog anymore. Nothing against peanut butter, my daughter lived off it at McGill.
The five C’s of journalists
Questerre reviewed all of the 201 briefs submitted to the BAPE. What is amazing is there were 61 briefs in favor of Utica natural gas exploration. Industry and chambers of commerce account for fewer than 20 of those. So there were more than 40 BAPE briefs that came out voluntarily in favor of development of […]
Horizon and The Fall of Giants
The Horizon oilsands accident is all over the news this weekend. Horizon is a heavy oil refinery in the same industrial sector as the refineries just outside of Montreal on highway 40 close to the St. Lawrence River. I read a great book during Christmas holidays: The Fall of Giants by Ken Follett. I highly […]
You can trust a cab driver
It’s interesting what you can learn from taxi cab drivers. On my last trip to Quebec City I was not completely surprised to learn that our driver had understood from the media that shale gas was much more dangerous than natural gas and he didn’t want to use it. When informed that shale gas was […]
What a scoop!
La Presse reported yesterday that the surface casing vents on wells drilled in Quebec are working according to their design. That’s a relief. In fact, surface casing vents are literally designed to be a relief, a pressure relief. In addition, to several layers of casing and cement a safety device called a casing vent is […]
Why write a blog?
Before saying why I decided to write a blog let me tell you the reasons I shouldn’t. Getting involved in public debates is decidedly not what presidents of public companies do. The answer for this is fairly simple. There are many downsides and few upsides. First, there are legal risks. Securities commissions require that all […]
Even Norwegians Not Welcome?
It is front page news again over last weekend that Norwegian investors have lost 50% of their value in Questerre. Greenpeace has criticized the largest bank in Norway for involving itself on behalf of investors at the BAPE to make the incredibly controversial statement that uncertainty affects investment decisions. The same Greenpeace that put in […]
The case of the missing social license (part one)
PART ONE Questerre used to have a social license for exploring hydrocarbons in Quebec. Our predecessor company used the license starting in 1989 with our first exploration well and we’ve since drilled over a dozen. We finally made a significant discovery of natural gas in 2008 only to lose our social license somewhere shortly afterwards. […]
What is our missing social license and where can we find it? (part two)
I have said for years that social license is the cultural and political milieu a project lives in. If the cultural and political milieu is friendly towards your project then it can have significant impacts and still get help to meet social license requirements. I recently discovered on the Google web site that a single […]