Letter from Canada: Last chance for Newfoundland offshore
The province has potential, but it needs big finds and it needs them fast
Newfoundland has long been a plodder in the global offshore oil industry, even though the Canadian province has some highly prospective rock and the provincial energy bureaucracy significantly professionalising over the past decade. Since its inception in 1966, only 170 exploration wells have been drilled in Newfoundland offshore waters, despite its sedimentary basin being 50pc larger than the US Gulf of Mexico and three-quarters the size of the North Sea. The Hibernia field is the only discovery with greater than 1bn bl of recoverable oil, with all the rest substantially smaller. Production peaked at a relatively modest 368,000bl/d in 2007—from Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose—dropping t
Also in this section
19 January 2026
Newfound optimism is emerging that a dormant exploration frontier could become a strategic energy play and—whisper it quietly—Europe’s next offshore opportunity
16 January 2026
The country’s global energy importance and domestic political fate are interlocked, highlighting its outsized oil and gas powers, and the heightened fallout risk
16 January 2026
The global maritime oil transport sector enters 2026 facing a rare convergence of crude oversupply, record newbuild deliveries and the potential easing of several geopolitical disruptions that have shaped trade flows since 2022
15 January 2026
Rebuilding industry, energy dominance and lower energy costs are key goals that remain at odds in 2026
