Fugro to conduct surveys for Equinor’s stalled $12B oil project off Canada

Dutch geo-data specialist Fugro has won a contract to perform surveys for an oil project located off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador being developed by Norwegian state-owned energy firm Equinor.

In its financial results for the first quarter of 2025, issued today, April 24, Fugro reported that it was recently appointed to deliver deepwater geophysical and environmental surveys for Equinor’s $12 billion oil project Bay du Nord, offshore eastern Canada.

The activities will be performed this summer and will see autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) technology utilized.

Following delays, Equinor received approval from the Canadian government to develop the Bay du Nord project in April 2022.

The project, situated in the Flemish Pass basin approximately 500 kilometers northeast of St. John’s, was put on a shelf for three years in 2023 because of the rise in costs. The final investment decision (FID) is expected in the next couple of years and the first oil as early as late 2028.

While Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore oil sector is already seen as one of the lowest-emitting in the country, Bay du Nord was approved with the historic requirement to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Like all other oil- and gas-producing provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador implements a price on industrial carbon emissions via its provincial output-based pricing system.

Equinor started the ball rolling at the beginning of this year for the oil project by awarding preliminary front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) work to BW Offshore and Altera Infrastructure. 

In the Americas region, Fugro was also recently appointed to perform geotechnical investigations to support floating LNG development for Southern Energy in Argentina’s Gulf of San Matias, and secured two contracts to provide remotely operated vehicle (ROV) services from Amaralina Star and Tidal Action vessels for Brazilian offshore company Constellation.

As for Europe and Africa, the Dutch company signed a multi-year agreement with Northern Powergrid in the UK for asset management services using ROAMES technology, won a contract with SSE for geotechnical surveys to support one of the world’s largest offshore wind opportunities at Berwick Bank in Scotland, and inked a call-off contract with Vattenfall for UXO identification and clearance surveys in Germany for the Nordlicht offshore wind farm.

Fugro further secured an additional offshore geotechnical site investigation for an offshore wind client in South Korea and a call-out for an underwater inspection campaign on the North-West Shelf in Australia.

In the Middle East & India region, the company was hired to perform an offshore visual inspection survey in Qatar for Pearl GTL by Shell, and an as-built survey using ROV for offshore pipelines for the North Field Production Sustainability Project for Saipem.

“The year was off to a challenging start. Market conditions have rapidly shifted, making clients more hesitant to commit to new projects. This happened while we were already adapting our Americas operations to the new political reality in the US,” said Mark Heine, Fugro’s CEO.

“We expect ongoing impacts of these market uncertainties into the second quarter. Our immediate priority is the continued implementation of measures to safeguard profitability and cash flow, without losing momentum on our long-term strategy Towards Full Potential.”