In case you’re one of those readers who don’t read the Comments section, you should go back and look at the comments on yesterday’s post.

Thanks to Quidam, we learn that:
• Canadian regulations about relief wells are not quite as simple as the Reuters story suggested.
• Oil companies do not actually have to drill relief wells in advance. Rather, in order to get a drilling permit they have to satisfy the National Energy Board that they have the capability to drill a relief well the same season as the exploratory well.

I think this provision probably does not have any legal teeth in an ex post sense. That is to say, if there is a big spill, and the oil company in question is not able to actually complete a relief well the same season, they probably can’t be sued or penalized for breach of the provision (see yesterday’s comments, for the underlying argument),

Thus, the effectiveness of the provision comes entirely from the independence and integrity with which government regulators enforce it up front, before a drilling permit is issued. We must, therefore, reluctantly conclude that such a provision probably wouldn’t be very useful in the US.