Illustration of the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit. (Equinor)
Premier Wakeham says after a hiatus, Newfoundland and Labrador is “back in the oil business” with an announcement on Equinor’s massive Bay du Nord project expected imminently.
Equinor put the deep sea project on hold in 2023, as it tried to find a new “path forward.” It was an unexpected development that cast a pall over the local oil and gas industry for the last couple of years.
Since then, Equinor has been working on a less expensive way to exploit massive amounts of oil under the ocean floor approximately 500 km offshore. That includes starting smaller and starting on the best discoveries, with other discoveries phased in over time.
The Wakeham government says Bay du Nord “has the potential to kick-start the entire energy sector in the North Atlantic” and he and his officials have been meeting with company representatives since being elected to government in the fall.