Statoil has made a third discovery of crude oil in the Flemish Pass Basin, offshore Newfoundland – a Canadian island.

The Norwegian firm said it is assessing the discovery on the Bay du Nord field – located around 500 kilometres northeast of St. John’s on Canada’s East Coast – and “developing a greater understanding” of the geology and potential of the basin.

Its previous find was in June at the Harpoon prospect, which is located 10 kilometres from Bay du Nord. Prior to that, the firm made a discovery at the nearby Mizzen field in 2009, with officials estimating it could hold between 100-200 million barrels of recoverable oil.

Statoil has, however, yet to release figures on how much oil it believes it has found at the Harpoon and Bay du Nord.

Tim Dodson, Executive Vice President – Statoil Exploration said: “The success of Bay du Nord is the result of an ambitious and targeted drilling campaign in the Flemish Pass Basin. This discovery is very encouraging.”

Statoil is the operator of Bay du Nord and Harpoon with a 65% interest whilst Husky Energy has a 35% stake.

Earlier this year the Norwegian oil and gas company firm also made an oil discovery near its Grane field in the North Sea.