Mr. Chair, to deal with the issue in the accord area specifically with Newfoundland and Labrador, the oversight is provided by the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. They issue the licence; they're the ones who make decisions.
We would underline that on May 20 they announced a number of, I would say, very significant steps—greatly heightened vigilance on that Chevron one. They established a team to provide regulatory oversight. They meet with the board's oversight team regularly. In fact, they are required to provide the board's well operations engineer with copies of field reports on things like the blowout preventer stack, the function test of the acoustic control system, the function of the remotely operated vehicle intervention. These are all key things to make sure that a blowout does not occur.
They're monitoring closely. They're also meeting every three weeks with the group. They have staff who are actually on board the rig. I would say the biggest measure is that prior to penetrating any of the drilling targets—those are areas that are the most prospective, where they think they might actually encounter oil or gas—they have a time out. They sit down with the board and go over it again to make sure that everything is in place and is running and that they are prepared. This is an unusual step; it has never been taken before.
They also make sure that representatives of the offshore board are on the Stena Carron at all the key points—when there are cementing operations, and for the casings, and things like that.
They've greatly heightened their vigilance on this project to make sure that all of the safety precautions are rigorously observed.