Ice management on the Grand Banks

The Grand Banks area off the east coast of Canada is subject to the incursion of both sea ice and icebergs as well as the movement of severe storms through the area. In this setting, exploration for oil has taken place for over ten years. In order to cope with the combined effects of ice and weather on the drilling operations, an ice management scheme is used to monitor, track, forecast and mitigate the impact of ice incursions on operations. Petro-Canada Inc. have an integrated approach to ice management which incorporates long range strategic monitoring of ice and short range tactical response to incursion of ice into predefined alert zones. Statistics of ice related downtime from other Petro-Canada operated areas show this ice management scheme to be effective in reducing downtime.