Brownfield Capital Project / Midstream Construction Project Manager Simulation — Pembina Pipeline Corporation

The scenario

Pembina's Gas Services group runs a compressor station in the Gordondale area of NW Alberta that moves contracted Montney gas on the Peace Pipeline system. Rising volumes have pushed the corridor toward its compression limit, so Capital Projects sanctioned a brownfield addition: a new ~5,000 HP Solar Turbines Centaur 50 turbine-compressor unit, tied into the existing, operating station. You own the construction tie-in, the controls integration, and the commissioning of the new unit — a roughly $31.5M brownfield capital project. The turbine-compressor package itself is OEM scope; your job is to make it part of a live station. Three vendors were contracted independently to get there: Bird Construction for the civil and mechanical tie-in, Solar Turbines for the package and commissioning, and Spartan Controls for the SCADA and control-system integration. Field operations, EH&S, and the Alberta Energy Regulator all have a say. The whole schedule pivots on a single planned outage window during which the station is depressurized and the new unit is physically cut in. Three vendors, three contracts, and one tie-in point that none of them clearly owns — with an outage window that will not move. Your job is to make them act like one team before the station goes down.

What you'll do as the project manager

• →Tie in and commission a new ~5,000 HP Solar Turbines Centaur 50 compressor unit at the live Gordondale-area station, adding compression to the Peace corridor
• →Complete the construction tie-in within a single ~96-hour planned station outage with no unplanned production deferral beyond the window
• →Achieve mechanical completion and AER Directive 056 facility-licence approval before the outage window opens
• →Integrate the new unit into the station SCADA and control system with a verified control narrative and a successful first-fire
• →Deliver the $31.5M tie-in within +/-5% of budget and hand over to operations with full as-builts and a clean HSE record

Project management skills you'll build

The challenges you'll navigate

• •Interface scope gray zone between Bird (mechanical), Solar (package), and Spartan (controls) at the tie-in point — gaps and double-counting both likely
• •The outage window is a hard, immovable date; any upstream slip compresses or blows the tie-in
• •AER Directive 056 approval timing could lag construction start and gate the tie-in
• •Brownfield unknowns — existing as-builts may not match field conditions at the tie-in point
• •Cross-vendor dependency — Spartan's controls cutover depends on Solar's control narrative and I/O list and on Bird's mechanical completion

Technology & stakeholders

You'll manage 7 stakeholders, including Jaret Sprott (Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer), Daryl Friesen (Manager, Project Development (Facilities), Capital Projects), Travis Cardinal (Area Operations Superintendent, Gas Services — NW Alberta), and more.

What you'll walk away with

A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.

Frequently asked questions