BP is selling its 40% stake in Canada's most significant deepwater oil projectsto Equinor
for zero stated premium and walking just two years after buying in via an asset swap with Cenovus Energy.
Equinor now owns 100%.
FID is still targeting 2027🇨🇦⚡
Bay du Nord is a phased subsea to FPSO development in the Flemish Pass Basin, 500km east of Newfoundland 400–430 million barrels of recoverable light oil in Phase 1.
CAD 14 billion in capex.
First oil around 2031.
bp: "strict capital discipline" and reallocation to "opportunities that create the most value." The project continues. BP does not.
Why BP is exiting?
Non-operated.
Long-dated.
Greenfield.
High capex ramping late this decade before a single barrel flows.
That profile does not fit BP's current capital framework under CEO Meg O'Neill which is concentrating on shorter-cycle, higher-return positions and advantaged operated deepwater (Kaskida, Tiber-Guadalupe, ACG, Bab Gas Cap).
Bay du Nord was a 2023 Cenovus swap that gave BP a minority stake it couldn't operate. 2 years later, it's gone.
Why Equinor is staying?
100% ownership simplifies FID governance and removes any joint-venture friction on a project that is genuinely close to sanctioning.
The NL government has a royalties framework in place, potential 10% provincial equity, and federal environmental approval already granted.
Equinor bears 100% of the cost risk but also 100% of a project that could anchor its Canadian production for decades. 💰
The pattern repeating:
Shell sold its non-operated 50% stake in Na Kika.
BP is selling its non-operated 40% in Bay du Nord.
The majors are systematically pruning minority, non-operated positions in mature or long-dated assets monetising today to concentrate capital where they have control, operatorship and near-term returns.