TRADES NL: Industry Works to Ensure Bay du Nord Project Stays Local

Trades NL is launching a Build Right Here campaign to ensure the mega-work opportunities are afforded to the local trades workforce in Newfoundland and Labrador from the Bay du Nord FPSO project.

The Bay du Nord FPSO will be located 500 km NE of St. John’s at water depths of 650 – 1170 meters and recoverable oil has been projected to be over 1 billion barrels. The developer of the project, Equinor, has determined that a floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) will be used to extract the oil.

Upramp of work for Equinor’s massive deepwater project is commencing, and the first oil is expected in about five years’ time. Construction is expected in 2024 once a benefits agreement is fully in place with the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador

Local Newfoundland and Labradorians are bound by the Atlantic Accord which governs the workflow of projects to be executed locally with local people. It’s a right, a necessity and an important piece of project success.

According to Equinor they, “Strongly support building local capacity and will prioritize goods and services from suppliers within the Province wherever possible. Consistent with the Accord Acts, Equinor will adopt a contracting and procurement strategy that gives first consideration to services provided from within the Province and to goods manufactured in the Province, where those services and goods are competitive in terms of fair market price, quality and delivery.” Equinor’s contracts and procurement office is located in St. John’s, to coordinate and manage the project’s procurement-related activities in the region.

Darin King, Director of Trades NL says, “We have the capacity and world-class workforce to Build Right Here in Newfoundland and Labrador. Trades NL is heavily advocating to ensure that our government and Equinor maximize the Bay du Nord opportunity to its full potential.

This project has the potential to create a significant amount of work for the people in the province, however, there are key components of the project that must be constructed in the province for that to happen.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Construction of Process and Utility Modules;
• Matting of Constructed Modules;
• Commissioning and Startup;
• Tow-out of the FPSO, as well as a;
• Community Benefits Agreement.

Trades NL has built upon a 30-year legacy with an increasingly experienced, high-caliber, highly trained and safe workforce to construct Bay du Nord. Darin King believes that everything, except the hull can, and should, be built in Newfoundland & Labrador. Equinor’s website states, “Equinor strongly supports building local capacity. Equinor expects successful bidders for contracts awarded for the Bay du Nord project to work together with Equinor and the local labor force in order to optimize participation from the local marketplace in the project development.”

Darin King explains his concerns for the project, “We’ve had projects happen in the past where the work was done elsewhere unnecessarily. Our goal is to ensure that we garnish the work that we are qualified to execute. We have thirty years of exemplary offshore experience in the trades sector and these mega-projects are now at a point where our expertise and competence are being executed all over the world. Our goal is to ensure that any transfer of technology continues to grow in the region and that we use our current expertise and resources to ensure Bay du Nord has a world-class safety protocol and workforce.”

GET INVOLVED!

Please engage with your local MHA and other government officials – to ensure they are aware that in order for this project to reach its full potential and return profits to communities throughout our province, they must continue to advocate for work to be constructed within our province, by our local workers.

Be professional, respectful and deliver a strong message.

Premier Andrew Furey: (709) 729-3570, premier@gov.nl.ca

Hon. Andrew Parsons: (709) 729-2920, andrewparsons@gov.nl.ca

List of MHAs and their contact details: assembly.nl.ca/members