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Statoil, which is 67%-owned by the Norwegian government, said Thursday it is closer to commercially developing a trio of discoveries after uncovering a field holding between 300 million and 600 million barrels of oil at its Bay du Nord prospect in the Flemish Pass, 500 kilometres northeast of St. John’s. The discovery of 34 API gravity oil under 1,100 metres of water is the biggest by Stavanger-based Statoil outside Norway and the 12th-largest made globally since 2010, Geir Richardsen, vice-president of exploration with the company’s Canadian unit, said in an interview from St. John’s.

The find is Statoil’s third in an area covering roughly 8,500 square kilometres after two discoveries called Harpoon and Mizzen. Harpoon is still under evaluation, but Mizzen may hold up to 200 million barrels of oil, Statoil has said. Bay du Nord is “significant, however you look it,” Mr. Richardsen said. The fact that “it’s light, good quality oil in a very good reservoir makes it an even better story.”

Bay du Nord, a joint venture with Husky Energy Inc., marks one of the deepest significant discoveries to date in Canada’s North Atlantic region, stirring hopes that a shift to deep water exploration that has rapidly transformed oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil can help reverse production declines offshore Newfoundland.

Bay du Nord “proves that we have oil in our province’s deep water basin,” Tom Marshall, Newfoundland’s natural resources minister, said in an interview. “This is a new find in a new basin and this is great news.”