Talon Energy Services: The MEGA Dream

The term mega-project has been looked upon with both desire and derision in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. But call it what you will, there’s no denying the ambitious nature of some of the things we get ourselves into in order to extract wealth from the land we live on and the water around us.

From mining, to hydroelectricity to our growing oil and gas sector we know how to undertake a development and supersize it. It comes with the territory: big waves, big rocks, big land and – we can’t forget – big dreams.

Our background is in oil and gas. And this province has been – and will continue to be – a place where big dreams become reality in that industry. Hibernia is proof of that for sure.

The learning from Hibernia will no doubt be applied to the coming Hebron development (for one, the innovations in iceberg surveillance and diversion that have occurred over the last decade will mean the ice-wall structure will look very different on Hebron’s Gravity Base Structure (GBS). Hebron is the real deal, the next large-scale offshore oil and gas project this province has been waiting to mature. And mature it has. A projected half-billion barrels of oil and $20 billion windfall for the province over the lifetime of the project is, well, big. But those are the production numbers. Beneath the raw data is some more good news for the province and our industry.

One of the unfortunate but unavoidable realities of the delay between the White Rose development and Hebron is the loss of skills and personnel to other parts of the world to work on other projects. Good people are hard to come by and a lot of them will see fit to return to Newfoundland and Labrador once Hebron gets going, so there’s a windfall of knowledge and expertise coming our way.

Further, the Bull Arm site has lain dormant now for a number of years and the new Hebron GBS means the facility will be modernized and upgraded to become a world-class build area once again. The kind of attention and interest this will attract is priceless. A revitalized site means the new GBS will have its own reputation out of the shadow of Hibernia. It also means that once the structure is moved to its new home offshore, the potential for Bull Arm to possibly attract other builds for projects in countries far away from here is enormous. You can’t buy that kind of leadership statement.

By Extension

The expansion and extension of Hibernia South, White Rose and Terra Nova guarantee new life for our industry into the 2030s. Planning and execution will mean thousands of jobs at first. The same personnel and expertise requirements of the Hebron development are at play in these expansions too. Again, though, there is the underlying possibility that business opportunities will align with the demand such expansions create. We have to ask ourselves what are we relying on outside sources for now that could be satisfied by the right business idea here at home? The very fact that three major developments will be expanded and Hebron will be added as a fourth begs that question. Certainly, the innovation is here and so is the entrepreneurial spirit. Expect big things in the next few years with the combination of both as new companies with new services flourish.

The Green Machine

We don’t think it’s too early to be discussing the opportunities that lie northeast of us either. Greenland has its own offshore oil and gas mega-project agenda. They’ll be looking to us for expertise and facilities, given the proximity of both industries. With an improved Bull Arm site, the technical know-how on the ground and a leading offshore industry with a “running engine” already in place, our next mega-project could be as a supply base for someone else’s. The alignments here are obvious and numerous – let’s not miss the (supply) boat.

Do we have big in our blood? Maybe. It seems to be by necessity, not by design. This is a tough part of the world to extract natural resources. They are plentiful, but nature keeps them hidden. In order to realize their wealth with minimal environmental impact, you’ve got to think big.