Commercial Fishing - Before/During/After Platform Construction

Abstract

Introduction Hibernia is an offshore oilfield located 315 km east southeast of St. John's, Newfoundland, off Canada's east coast. The field will be produced from a single concrete platform standing in 80 m of water on the Grand Banks (Fig. 1). There will be a double loop export line and offshore loading system for dedicated, double hulled tankers (Fig. 2). The field is expected to come into production in late 1997. It has taken just over 5 years to construct the platform. While four of the five Topsides modules of the platform were built at yards in Italy and Korea, the Gravity Base Structure (GBS) or caisson, the wellhead module, and several topsides mounted structures were built in Newfoundland. The platform will be assembled and completed at the Newfoundland site prior to towout to the Grand Banks for production operations. A small cove on Newfoundland's northeast coast was selected as the construction site (Fig. 3). The site is unique as it is being used for both base and topsides construction, assembly and mating. The deepwater site for completing construction of the base and for mating is only 300 m from the shore site with water depths of over ISO metres. Great Mosquito Cove, the construction and assembly site, is located within a Fjord named Bull Arm at the bottom of 90km long Trinity Bay (Fig. 4). Sunnyside is the only community on Bull Arm with two other fishing communities 14 km distant by water, Chance Cove and Bellevue. Bull Arm, like every other part of the Newfoundland coastline is used by inshore fishermen. Sunnyside crews fish only in Bull Arm from 18 - 32 foot open boats. They use several varieties of fixed gear: lobster pots, flounder nets, gill nets, bar seines, longlines, caplin traps, cod traps, squid traps and jiggers. Crews from nearby communities typically have larger vessels, about 34 feet in length, and search throughout Bull Arm and other areas of Trinity bay for pelagic species such as herring. mackerel and caplin using purse seines and bar seines as well as using a variety of fixed gear similar to that used by Sunnyside fishermen, with the addition of crab traps. Before Platform Construction Began As soon as the construction site was selected in late fall 1989, two main initiatives were started to ensure that the concerns of the local area fishermen were identified and addressed during all planning and construction activity. Bid packages that went out to bidders for site and subsequent platform construction contained background development information on the inshore fishery and also instructions to prepare a specific commercial fishery Environmental Protection Plan. The resulting plans were reviewed by HMDC, government and the general public. Hibernia also began the information gathering and discussions with the local area fishermen which would lead to the two - part Project Fisheries Agreement, consisting of a Code of Practice, addressing safety matters, and a compensation policy and program. Working Relationship At first it was very difficult to persuade many of the area fishermen to participate in the development of a working relationship between themselves and the project. For many, the reaction to the selection of Bull Arm as the platform construction site was that the fishery was finished and that they should simply be paid off and their gear abandoned: others felt that "Big Oil" would simply do whatever it wanted no matter what they said. The cynicism and pessimism had some basis: over the years the inshore fishery had been managed by means of a very large number of government rules, regulations and policies which rarely, if ever, included input from the fishermen themselves. It was only after many, many discussions with the fishermen about the project - how big it will be, exactly what area will we use, what will go in the water, will there be pollution safeguards, what will be left behind when the platform is finished -and some time on the water with the fishermen seeing the area from their point of view, that specific concerns of the fishermen, and suggestions as how to address them, began to emerge. P. 433