Hebron GBS Project

The Hebron oil field is located offshore Newfoundland and Labrador in the Jeanne d’Arc Basin, 350 kilometres southeast of St. John’s. The field was first discovered in 1980, and is estimated to produce more than 700 million barrels of recoverable resources.

The Hebron field will be developed using a stand-alone concrete gravity based structure (GBS). The GBS will consist of a reinforced concrete structure designed to withstand sea ice, icebergs and meteorological and oceanographic conditions.  It will be designed to store approximately 1.2 million barrels of crude oil. The Bull Arm Site is the primary construction site for the GBS.

The Hebron GBS project is the second largest slipform operation ever to be executed, since the Gullfaks C GBS constructed in the late 1980’s.Everything we have accomplished together as a team over the past 5 years has been building up to this task – and its result will define the success of the project.

An extraordinary amount of planning has gone into making sure this project will have a positive result by putting to use everything that we have learned from our past experiences and by promoting safe operation practices where nobody gets hurt. The whole Hebron team has demonstrated the commitment to safety with over 10 million person hours on the project and not a single lost time injury, and we will continue to demonstrate this commitment to leave a positive safety legacy in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Last week, we have started the 530 slipform operation, which will be a continuous pour lasting over at least 30 days, and rising 44 meters in elevation. During this time, close to 3000 people will be working around the clock on the GBS and flotilla. There will be installed over 14,000 tones of reinforcing steel, and pour almost 50,000 cubic meters of concrete. Over the next month we will pour more concrete than we have on the entire project so far. And this will be done while the GBS will be floating in water.

Moving to the deep water site changed all the rules and brought new logistical challenges, personnel management challenges and new regulations. Almost everything we did on land became more of a challenge on the water. But after months of planning and working together as a team, we have been able to overcome challenges that no one could have predicted and I am confident that we will do what needs to be done to make this operation a success.