Hibernia pumped its billionth barrel of oil on December 21st, 2016.
Photo Credit: CBC

Hibernia oil platform pumps the billionth barrel

Hibernia, the oil platform 315 kilometres southeast of St. John’s, Newfoundland celebrated a milestone this week, pumping its billionth barrel of oil.

On Tuesday December 21st, the platform that was installed on the seabed almost 20 years ago, celebrated the occasion, and the extended life of the facility.

‘the original development plan… talked about recoverable oil of 563 million barrels’

“When the original development plan was filed they talked about recoverable oil of 563 million barrels,” Rob Strong, a veteran oil industry consultant, said Thursday.

“It’s very encouraging obviously when you start off at 563, you’re up to a billion, and probably going to 1.6 billion. Yeah, it’s pretty good,” he added.

2016 and 2017 was originally forecast as the waning of the work on Hibernia, but satellite fields increased the oil reserves and the platform is expected to be active for another 15 to 20 years.

Built at a cost of $6 billion Hibernia has produced more than $65 billion worth of oil, according to the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador.

2,000 people are employed by Hibernia and since production began in 1997 it has generated billions of dollars in royalties and taxes for both the provincial and federal governments.

“I am very proud to lead an extremely talented team and want to thank the leaders and workers who came before me, our co-venturers, contractors and the external partners who contributed to our success in terms of our safety culture and production performance,” Jennifer Walck, president of the Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. (HMDC) said in a news release yesterday.

She described the project as the foundation of the provincial oil and gas industry.

HMDC operates the Hibernia field, which is co-owned by ExxonMobil Canada (33.125 percent), Chevron Canada Resources (26.875 per cent), Suncor Energy (20 per cent), Canada Hibernia Holding Corporation (8.5 per cent), Murphy Oil (6.5 per cent) and Statoil Canada Ltd. (5 per cent).

Hibernia was the first of three producing oil fields off the coast of Newfoundland. Hebron, the fourth, is scheduled to begin production late in 2017.

Many in Newfoundland, while welcoming the economic diversity the oil and gas industry brought to the province, cannot forget the disaster in the early exploration days.

The Ocean Ranger, one of the drilling rigs, was lost in a winter storm on February 15th, 1982, taking 84 lives with it.

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