Certainly.
The CAODC represents 45 drilling contractors and 72 service rig contractors operating just over 800 drilling rigs and more than 1,000 service rigs across Canada. Of these totals, currently there are five offshore drilling facilities in Atlantic Canada, run by three companies. Right now there are no drilling operations pending in Canada's northern waters or on the west coast that our members have been aware of.
The CAODC welcomes the opportunity to provide some comments to the committee following the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico and the attendant blowout. As you heard from CAPP, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, in their brief on May 13, oil and gas production sourced from offshore Canadian reserves will play a significant role in meeting this country's hydrocarbon requirements in the coming decades. Currently about 12% of Canada's crude comes from Atlantic Canada.
To speak of the role of the drilling contractor, the oil and gas company—the operator, in our parlance—is the entity with overall responsibility for offshore operations. They lease the parcel of land from governments, and prepare and submit detailed plans to the regulatory authorities, including where and how the well is to be drilled, cased, cemented, and completed, based on their interpretation of proprietary data. Once the plans are approved and all the permits are in place, the operators—