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Hebron ready to roll
Progress toward the fourth standalone oil project offshore Newfoundland is expected to quicken this year as the Hebron development moves from front-end engineering and design to awarding contracts, which could cost up to C$6 billion.
Expected to recover 566 million barrels of 20 degree API gravity oil over a lifespan of 30 years, Hebron is scheduled for startup in 2017, building toward a peak of 120,000-175,000 barrels per day.
The project will tap three fields — Hebron, Ben Nevis and West Ben Nevis, which were first discovered in 1981, but development was delayed pending resolution of a fiscal agreement with the Newfoundland government, a negotiating process that was often acrimonious.
The owners are: operator ExxonMobil 36 percent, Chevron Canada 26.7 percent, Petro-Canada Hebron Partnership (now owned by Suncor Energy) 22.7 percent, Statoil Canada 9.7 percent and Nalcor Energy, owned by the Newfoundland government, 4.9 percent.
Initial work 2nd quarter Initial work is due to start next quarter, including reviving the main construction site, 90 miles northwest of St. John’s, the Newfoundland capital.
Like the Hibernia project, Hebron will produce from a concrete gravity-based structure, which will sit on the seabed and have storage capacity of 1.13 million to 1.45 million barrels. It will be about the height of a 40-storey building.
The other producing fields at Terra Nova and White Rose are being produced from floating production storage and offloading vessels, which were built at overseas shipyards, while the gravity-based structures must be built as close as possible to their oil field. Hebron is 205 miles east of St. John’s.
Construction employment is expected to peak at about 3,000 workers, excluding off-site work by companies supplying the project.
—Gary Park
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