Equinor and BHP awarded blocks offshore Canada

Equinor and BHP have both won bids for new exploration blocks offshore Canada.

Equinor and its partners announced they were successful in new exploration blocks in the prolific Jeanne d’Arc basin, offshore Newfoundland. While, BHP said it had acquired a 100 per cnet participating interest in, and operatorship of, two exploration licences for blocks 8 and 12 in the offshore Orphan Basin in Eastern Canada.

Equinor will operate two exploration parcels, NL18-CFB01-14 (Equinor Canada 70%, Husky Energy 30%) and NL18-CFB01-15 (Equinor Canada 60%, Suncor Energy 40%), totalling 4,126 square kilometres, and will participate in the Suncor Energy-operated parcel NL18-CFB02-01 (Suncor Energy 40%, Equinor Canada 30%, Husky Energy 30%).

“We are pleased to have secured significant acreage and new exploration opportunities offshore Canada. The successful bids aligns with Equinor’s strategy of developing our position in prolific basins.These exploration investments provide Equinor an important opportunity to advance our position in a region where we have a well-established exploration portfolio while we continue to evaluate and mature our existing exploration assets in the Flemish Pass Basin,” said Tim Dodson, Equinor’s executive vice president for exploration.

Steve Pastor, BHP President Operations Petroleum, said the successful bids are an exciting opportunity for BHP to explore for world class conventional oil assets as an early mover in this prospective region.

“This frontier opportunity has large oil resource potential which we identified through our Global Petroleum Endowment Study in 2016 and is in a low risk country, with competitive fiscal terms” Mr Pastor said.

“This opportunity delivers on our exploration focus in conventional petroleum and will leverage our global deep-water development and operational expertise.”

BHP’s aggregate bid amount of US$625 million covers the drilling and seismic work required by the exploration work programs under the licence agreements over the six year term. BHP’s minimum commitment under the licence agreements is for US$157 million.

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