ON A WARM SPRING DAY IN MAY, two young college-age women, resumes in hand, head into the downtown St. John’s office of NOIA, the Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industries Association that represents over 480 member companies. With the ExxonMobil-headed Hebron project office open as of April 29th and first oil slated between 2016 and 2018 (with an estimated operational lifespan of 25 years), it’s possible these two women could spend the bulk of their careers working on this one project.

Formally inking a deal with the Hebron partners was announced as a major piece of good news by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador last fall. In its 2008 Budget, the provincial government, a 4.9 per cent equity stakeholder in Hebron with partners ExxonMobil, Chevron, Petro-Canada and StatoilHydro, projected $20-billion in revenues for Newfoundland and Labrador over the life of the project from a calculated yield of 581-million barrels. Peak construction of the Hebron project, centered on fabrication of the Gravity-Based Structure (GBS) oil platform at the Bull Arm facility, is expected to employ about 3,500 people and begin in 2012. Though the major economic benefits are still years away, Hebron is currently issuing substantial amounts of another valuable currency: optimism.

Steve Power, chief operating officer of Crosbie Industrial Services Ltd., a supplier of industrial cleaning services that has had involvement with all three of Newfoundland and Labrador’s previous major oil developments (Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose) says Hebron creates a much-needed buzz. “The existing producing offshore fields are, I believe, at or close to being on the downside of their production, without the possible expansions that they’re looking at. With Hebron, you actually see some further growth as opposed to everything being on the downside…. So, what Hebron does is it allows you to continue to invest in people and equipment because there’s more (activity) on the horizon.”

The trickle down of this future planning, says Power, has an important impact on the decisions of his on-call workers today. “It makes it easier to get and retain people because they don’t see the need to move away as quickly,” he says.

For suppliers like Crosbie Industrial, hoping to continue their association with major oil projects by participating in Hebron, a key consideration in the next round of hiring will be gender equity. Touted as a cornerstone of the Hebron agreement, the Gender Equity and Diversity Plan is to be implemented in all phases of Hebron development.

In a recent conversation, Kathy Dunderdale, Minister of Natural Resources as well as Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, pointed to the unanimous consensus of all Hebron partners for the inclusion of a Gender Equity clause in the agreement. “We saw the development of the Hibernia project here in the province, and women were practically shut out of that project,” she says. “Less than four per cent of the employees were female and there were so few women involved in trades and technology that we really couldn’t measure it….Oil and gas is a significant part of our economy and half our population needs to be able to access the high-paying jobs and economic benefits that come from that.”

With the parameters of the Gender Equity Plan still to be written, it remains to be seen whether those two young women will find their place in time for this next boom. According to the Hebron office, the Women’s Employment Plan and Business Access Strategy will be submitted as part of the Development Plan Application the end of this year.

Lynn Ann Nicholosi, a native Newfoundlander and Memorial University graduate, now business manager at the Hebron office says: “When I graduated from college, Hibernia was just on the radar and it was a big incentive for me to know that there was a project in place. So I think it’s the same; It’s our responsibility to make that known to the local colleges and we’ve already committed time and sponsorship to programs.”

In conjunction with NOIA, members of the Hebron office have been in communities across the province meeting with suppliers. Four such information sessions (St. John’s, Clarenville, Marystown and Corner Brook) were heavily attended in April, with over 400 people attending the St. John’smeeting alone. “We were really quite impressed by the responses out there,” says Nicholosi.