Awarded in September 2007, Tarpon's multi-disciplined contract with Petro-Canada will soon come to a close and has proven to be a milestone for both organizations. Tarpon's mandate was to provide the custom design, fabrication and electrical installation of two MCC buildings, the interconnection of 12 vendor packages and all site services for Petro-Canada's Sales Compressor Station P3B near Medicine Hat, AB. Now, nearly one year after the contract was awarded, the Tarpon team has achieved many successes and experienced lessons-learned that will benefit the company as a whole.

Several groups from Tarpon's Electric & Controls and Structures divisions worked together to provide the customer with a high quality, fully electrical-operated compressor station. The overall project management was executed by Ray Scanlan of Tarpon's Integrated Services group. “My role as project manager is to act as the main interface between the customer and Tarpon's different divisions,” says Scanlan. “This project in particular involved the Structures division, who designed and built the MCC buildings; both the Edmonton and Calgary shops, who completed the skid wiring; and, the Construction Services group with assistance from the Medicine Hat shop, who executed the field installation.”

With the end of this project in sight, Nathan Diebold, Manager, Southern Construction Services, and his crew have reason to celebrate. “This was the first significant project where Construction Services has managed the entire field installation. Our goal when we established the Construction Services group was to demonstrate that Tarpon has the capacity to carry out this type of work,” says Diebold. “With the dedication of Dan Vander Meulen, Site Supervisor, and our Construction Services group, along with the support of Jaime Marsall and the Medicine Hat branch, we were able to successfully complete the first stage of the project while exceeding our customer's expectations.”

The second stage of the contract is scheduled to wrap up in mid-September and Diebold reflects on the team's accomplishments throughout the duration of the project. “We worked as a team to attain our scheduling goals, ensuring that any changes made were communicated with the customer,” Diebold notes. “Everyone involved was dedicated to the quality of workmanship and it definitely was shown in the final product.”

Along with many successes, the Tarpon team takes away valuable experience from this project that will benefit the organization for the long-term. “We've learned a lot from this contract,” says Marsall, Branch Manager, Medicine Hat. “We were able to streamline several procedures for certain tasks that we will be able to utilize in upcoming projects and were able to enhance our safety practices as well.”

Tarpon's contract to complete Petro-Canada's Compressor Station has strengthened the relationship between the two companies. “The customer had a great deal of confidence in Tarpon's project and construction management capabilities in regards to budgeting, cost tracking, scheduling and weekly cost reporting,” says Darren Loraas, Director, Business Development. “The Construction Services management team along with the Medicine Hat, Calgary, and Edmonton shops are to be commended on delivering a top-quality product to the customer on behalf of Tarpon. This station's design and model is definitely the benchmark for Petro-Canada going forward and we will look forward to working with them on similar projects in the future.”