The two levels of Canadian government needed to approve an extension of Atlantic Canada’s flagship development Hibernia have said okay to ExxonMobil and the license Management Company’s plans.

The oil company plans to use the star-shaped concrete platform to tie-back the 50 million barrels believed to lie in the AA Block in License PA 1001.

In a sign of continued miscommucnication between oil companies offshore Canada and the two, often competing levels of government, a 57-page analysis of the plan to recover the AA Block reserves as part of a so-called B Pool redeveloment started by saying the government had expected instead a proposal for the Hibernia Southern Extension. And it’s the seventh ammendment to the orginal development plan.

The new plan is to extend the Hibernia platform’s life beyond the original 2027 to 2036 using the new reserves.

ExxonMobil believes AA could hold 70 MM bbls to add to the main Hibernia B Pool’s 870 MM bbls. The plan is to use water injection (two wells) to produce oil from two new wells by drilling entirely from the gravity-based concrete platform.

The field has already produced 641 MM bbls, almost all of it from the Hibernia reservoir, which still produces 98,202 bpd. The field has been in decline since 2003, but 56 wells out of 64 GBS well slots are active.

The Hibernia Field lies 315 km southeast of budding oil town St. John's, Newfoundland. Chevron and partners found the field in 1979.