Thank you for your testimony today.
I suppose what the committee is seized with, and what I think many Canadians are asking, is whether what happened in the Gulf of Mexico could happen in Canada.
The two primary places we're looking at are the east coast, where drilling is going on at depths that are greater than those drilled by the Deepwater Horizon, and the Arctic, where exploratory leases are being granted, which one would presume leads to drilling in Arctic conditions. That is the overall question we're facing today.
I have a specific question for Mr. Roche. When you start to get down to depths of 5,000, 8,000, or 10,000 feet, is the geology at the subsurface level any different from what it is in a 50- or 100-foot well? By that I mean the subsurface. Once the drill goes in, is there anything different about what comes up, the types of pressures you're dealing with, or the types of materials you're dealing with as drillers?