Norway’s Equinor has tapped a pair of marine engineering firms to move forward with a design competition for the development of its closely watched Bay du Nord field offshore Newfoundland and Labrador. The operator has awarded preliminary front-end engineering and design (pre-FEED) contracts to BW Offshore and Altera Infrastructure (formerly part of Teekay). The Eastern Canada project was put on ice a few years ago due to a larger-than-expected price tag, upwards of $12 billion, for the planned FPSO and associated subsea hardware required to develop the project following an initial round of development reviews.
BW Offshore released a statement saying the company was honored to be selected to perform the pre-FEED study, adding that the project underscores “our expertise in floating production solutions and commitment to delivering sustainable and innovative solutions for our partners.”
Altera added that the Bay du Nord FPSO required by Equinor is “well aligned with our long history of delivering vessels specifically designed for harsh environments.”
The Bay du Nord project consists of several oil discoveries in the Flemish Pass basin, some 500 km northeast of St. John’s in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The first discovery was made by Equinor in 2013 and is estimated to hold around 300 million BOE. The find was followed by additional discoveries in 2014, 2016, and 2020.
The Canadian government approved the development of Bay du Nord in April 2022.
The Bay du Nord discovery lies in around 1170 m of water, while the later discoveries are in the adjacent exploration license EL1156 (Cappahayden and Cambriol), at a depth of 650 m, and are potential tie-ins in a joint project development.
Equinor has long planned to develop the Bay du Nord field using a FPSO, which the company has said also is a suited solution for tieback of adjacent discoveries and future prospects.
In May 2023, following changing market conditions and subsequent high-cost inflation, Equinor and partner BP decided to postpone the Bay du Nord development project up to 3 years.
At the time of the postponement, the partners said the time would be utilized to “optimize the project and continue to actively mature Bay du Nord towards a successful development.”
The original schedule for the project targeted final investment decision in 2021 and first oil in 2025. A revised timeline placed first oil in late 2028, but the project hiatus makes that schedule unlikely.
In May 2024, Equinor selected SLB’s Subsea Integration Alliance, made up of OneSubsea and Subsea7, for a new long-term collaboration agreement for exploratory work to begin on both the Wisting field off Norway and Bay du Nord off Eastern Canada.
The agreement provides a contractual framework for earlier and closer engagement throughout the project cycle, aiming for information sharing and technology innovation to gain more value from complex projects. Work was set to begin immediately with maturation of the subsea scope of the two projects.
