Nearly two months after 250,000 litres of crude spilled into the ocean off the coast of Newfoundland, production on the SeaRose platform remains shut down.

A brief update this week from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB) said while inspections by vessels, satellites and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) continue, the board would keep reviewing Husky Energy’s plan to plug the flow line from which the oil spilled, and to recover the failed flow-line connector from the ocean floor.

That connector is sitting about 115 metres beneath the SeaRose floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, which is about 350 kilometres from St. John’s in the White Rose oilfield. In the field, wells are drilled by a mobile drilling unit and connected to the platform through a network of subsea flow lines.

C-NLOPB spokeswoman Lesley Rideout said in an email that meetings with Husky are happening this week to discuss the separated line.

The company has submitted a plan to the board on how to deal with it, which must be approved before it can be implemented and production can resume.

“We don’t have further information to release at this time. However, we will update our website when we do,” said Rideout.

The C-NLOPB said its investigation of the spill is ongoing.

There have been no further reports of oil in the ocean since November, but in the days after the incident, a Husky Energy official told iPolitics there was no guarantee the ordeal was over, as the flow line was still open.

READ MORE: Uncertainty remains after SeaRose oil spill

“As long as no one disturbs it, I’m not expecting any oil to come out,” Trevor Pritchard, senior vice-president of Husky Energy in the Atlantic region, said at the time.

“But I’ll never say never. There is an open end, at the moment.”

He said the connection was being monitored to ensure no more oil finds its way to the sea.

The largest spill ever off Canada’s East Coast happened in the wake of a storm that left the SeaRose in the thick of strong winds and massive, 28-foot waves.

Like other platforms in the area, it had stopped production during the storm, but was trying to resume operations when the spill occurred.



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The sea remained rough for days, preventing any effort to contain the spill, or to determine its size and if it was contained.

In December, Husky apologized for the spill.

“We are deeply sorry for the incident and are committed to learning from it and putting measures in place to ensure it does not happen again,” the company said in a statement.



The company revealed at that time there had actually been two back-to-back spills on Nov. 16.

“The initial release occurred during the approximately 20 minutes (when) offshore teams were troubleshooting a drop in flow-line pressure,” Husky said. “A retest led to a second release lasting approximately 15 minutes.”

READ MORE: Calls for better oversight of offshore oil follow NFLD spill

The spill has renewed calls for improved oversight of the offshore oil industry.

For instance, oil companies determine what conditions to operate in, as set out in safety and environmental plans they submit to the C-NLOPB.

While the board would have issued the operations authorization based on those plans, there are no regulatory standards for operating in different types of weather. Nor does the board decide when production can, or should, resume offshore.

“What we’re experiencing right now is the outcome of a failed regulatory regime,” Bill Montevecchi, a seabird biologist at Memorial University, said in November.

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