An Opposition politician says the federal government should have stepped in to block the bargain-basement sale of major oil offshore exploration leases in the Arctic to a tiny British company with few resources and even less northern experience.
"Why did the minister fail to protect this valuable resource?" asked New Democrat MP Dennis Bevington in the House on Thursday after last week's purchase of the exploration rights to 9,000 square kilometres in the Beaufort Sea to Franklin Petroleum.
Records in the United Kingdom show that Oxfordshire-based Franklin has two employees - CEO Paul Barrett and his wife. It has $200 in the bank and a net worth of minus $32,000.
Franklin bought the rights - which are in addition to two Beaufort parcels it bought last year - for the promise of $7.5 million worth of work over the next five years in a region where even an inexpensive well costs more than 10 times that.
"To award such a large quantity of offshore acreage to a piddly little company doesn't seem to be in the public interest," said longtime industry observer and analyst Paul Ziff in Calgary.
Bevington points out that the owner of the rights isn't restricted from transferring or selling them.
"What we have is a loss of control over a very large part of the Beaufort Sea."
Arctic offshore leases come under the purview of Northern Development Minister John Duncan, who did not answer Bevington's question. Duncan's parliamentary secretary, Greg Rickford, called the question "another 'gotcha' moment from the member for Western Arctic."
