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Newfoundland and Labrador targets

new offshore oil, gas investment

NEWFOUNDLAND NEWFOUNDLAND and Labrador is opti- The offshore field – located nearly 350 km
AND LABRADOR mistic about additional oil production from its south-east of provincial capital St. John’s in the
offshore acreage in 2023 – compared with 2022 Grand Banks area – could potentially have its
– and incremental investments, according to output ramped up to about 30,000 bpd from
senior provincial government officials. start-up, Parsons said.
Total oil production in 2021 was a cumulative “Exxon is planning to drill one or two wells,
94mn barrels, or an average of 258,000 barrels while BP will spud its first exploratory well in
per day. It decreased to 70mn barrels, or 192,000 the 2023 summer in the Cape Frills area in the
bpd, in 2022 at it last count, from January to West Orphan Basin,” said the Oil and Gas Corp. The Atlantic
October, said Newfoundland and Labrador’s of Newfoundland and Labrador’s (OilCo) CEO,
Minister for Industry, Energy and Technology, Jim Keating. province is home
Andrew Parsons. OilCo is the province-owned crown corpo-
But in 2023 the expectation is of an increase ration that collects and interprets seismic and to an estimated
in output, he said without giving a specific figure. geological offshore data.
One reason for the decline in production last “These planned activities indicate a growing 124bn barrels
year was the planned maintenance at the Hiber- interest in our offshore sector which we feel is of crude oil,
nia oilfield, which resulted in drilling being still relatively underexplored when compared
stopped for nearly a year, he said. with Norway or the UK,” Parsons said. “We 3.2bn barrels of
“But that is now planned for a restart and know there is a transition happening to clean oil,
new wells will be drilled,” Parsons added, noting but the reality is we have a low-carbon offshore which have been
that in early 2023 another oilfield – Terra Nova – oil that is desirable going forward and we want to
would restart production following the arrival at remain an attractive jurisdiction to do business discovered.
site of a floating production, storage and offload- with high ESG [environmental, social and gov-
ing (FPSO) facility. The FPSO has been under- ernance] standards.”
going an extensive overhaul and retrofitting in The Atlantic province is home to an estimated
yards in Spain and Newfoundland. 124bn barrels of crude oil, 3.2bn barrels of which
Terra Nova has been shut down since late have been discovered, and 293 trillion cubic feet
2019 and the Newfoundland and Labrador gov- (8.3 trillion cubic metres) of natural gas, of which
ernment has been working with operator Suncor 11 tcf (312bn cubic metres) has been discovered.
Energy and other stakeholders to complete the It is continuing to acquire new 3D seismic data
planned work on the FPSO, he said. and geological modelling, Keating said.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 26•January•2023