Energy NL upbeat on Newfoundland despite industry doubts

CEO argues the upstream potential remains huge as analysts question future oil production for Canadian province’s offshore industry

Pessimism is spreading among analysts and forecasting agencies about future crude oil production from Newfoundland and Labrador’s (NL) offshore, with even the Canada Energy Regulator (CER) providing a negative outlook in its most recent round of scenarios. NL oil production could increase to between 300,000b/d and 360,000b/d by 2030 based on CER’s three scenarios, compared with 210,000b/d last year (and a high of 368,000b/d in 2007), before going into terminal decline and collapsing to between a few thousand b/d and almost 50,000b/d by 2050. But the CER assumed the Bay du Nord project in the Flemish Pass Basin, led by Norway’s Equinor, would come into service by the end of this decade, when