A local oil industry consultant says Equinor might have other plans for the drill rig the Transocean Barents.

Some 160 workers got their layoff notices this week now that the lease agreement is coming to an end.

New provincial energy minister Andrew Parsons indicated last week that departure of the drill rig may not be as bleak as things appear.

Rob Strong says when Equinor drilled an exploration well at Cappahayden about 13 to14 km from the Bay du Nord discovery, it was supposed to be drilled and abandoned.

But instead, the C-NLOPB’s weekly report described it as “suspended” indicating it’s possible they may want to go back and re-enter the well.

Strong says a sidetrack well was drilled.

He guesses they “don’t drill horizontal wells at the day rate of $300,000 dollars a day if they haven’t found something.”

He says Upstream magazine is also speculating there is something significant at Cappahayden. The rig is currently drilling another well about 40 km away from that site.