Cost Recovery

Recovering costs associated with regulating offshore oil and gas activity from operators on behalf of both governments is part of our regulatory requirements.

Cost recovery is the method used to recover the costs our organization spends to regulate an operator’s offshore activities, manage licence owners' rights and to implement other aspects of our mandate. We also recover the costs from industry when they visit our Geoscience Research Centre and when a visitor samples well materials, such as cuttings and core. We follow the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Cost Recovery Regulations which describes the fees or charges, and the methods we can use to calculate these fees or charges.

We jointly developed Cost Recovery Guidelines with the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board. These guidelines provide assistance and guidance to operators in understanding the cost recovery requirements found in the Accord Acts and the Cost Recovery Regulations, and our expectations on how the requirements can be met. 

Cost Recovery Rates

On an annual basis, we are required to post a schedule of cost recovery fees. The schedules of fees is updated annually after our budget for the fiscal year is approved by both governments. Our fiscal year runs from April 1 - March 31.

Effective June 20, 2023, our Cost Recovery Fees Schedule for the 2023-2024 fiscal year are as follows:

* All fees are in Canadian Dollars.

Cost Recovery Fee Schedule 

 
Effective Rate ($/day) $4,870
Geodata Centre Daily Rate ($/day) $200

* Please note that our Geodata Centre is the Geoscience Research Centre located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Table 1 Rights Activities Formula Fees
Table 2 Geological and Geophysical Activities Formula Fees (includes sampling programs)
Table 3 Geological and Geophysical Activities Formula Fees (with variable units of time)