Look back at the Hibernia project

Excerpt from the book to be published “Reinforcing the Future Since 1948 ” by Valérie Lesage.

In the history of a company, some projects have an impact far beyond anything imaginable when the idea of participating in them first arose. Hibernia is one of these.

The first impact of the oil rig to be built off Newfoundland’s coast was to give AGF a major project in 1992, a year after the onset of a severe economic recession that plagued the construction market.

The second was discovering that AGF had the capacity to enter the international arena.

The opportunity of a lifetime

Four years in the making, Hibernia called for the production and installation of 105,000 metric tons of reinforcing steel to build the world’s largest gravity structure housing an offshore oil drilling platform. And that platform had to withstand the impact of icebergs, which drift around it for part of the year. To date, Hibernia remains one of the largest reinforcing steel projects ever completed in Canada.

“I was thrilled to be part of this project,” recalls Serge Gendron. “At the time, it was the opportunity of a lifetime! We were very intrepid because, in reality, we might not have been as ready as we would have liked. There were 700 steel workers on this project: in comparison, no project in Canada in 2022 had more than 100. It was huge!”

For this project, AGF partnered with French companies that dominated the international market. The partnership meant that the giants bore the costs of the sizable payroll and steel procurement.

“I learned a great deal through this partnership. In particular, I realized that when comparing ourselves to the French, Norwegians, Americans and English Canadians, who were also working on the project, we were on equal footing. This gave me the confidence that we were capable of moving the company forward, without an inferiority complex,” says Serge Gendron.

Employees from Longueuil took pride in their involvement in Hibernia, since for some of them, who were nearing the end of their career, it would be the achievement of a lifetime. Workers needed to be recruited from across the country. Everything was done through networking. And some of the people hired for the project would stay with AGF for much longer, and then had the opportunity to work in Quebec, Alberta or even as far away as South Africa.

It would take a few more years before AGF ventured beyond Canada’s borders. When opportunities arose, however, there was a confidence that anything was possible because the expertise had been built within the company.