Equinor and bp have announced they will postpone the Bay du Nord development project up to three years.

“We will utilize this postponement to continue to actively mature Bay du Nord towards a successful development,” said Tore Løseth, Country Manager, Equinor Canada.

In recent months, due in large part to volatile market conditions, the Bay du Nord project has experienced significant cost increases in many aspects of the development, the company said in a news release.

“Bay Du Nord is an important project for Equinor. Within the context of the changing market with increased cost, we will now look at the project again to see if we can do further optimizations to our concept and strategies,” said Trond Bokn, Senior Vice President, Project Development in Equinor. 

The Bay du Nord development project is composed of five discoveries, with significant additional near field prospectivity. Equinor continues to assess exploration drilling around the Bay du Nord field in 2024. 

“Canada is one of Equinor’s core areas and through both our partner-operated assets and Bay du Nord, we maintain a very strong business in the country,” said Løseth. “We are also encouraged by the strong support in Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada for the project and look forward to the future development of Bay du Nord.”