The Hibernia oil field was discovered by Chevron Standard Ltd. and partners in 1979. The discovery well, Chevron et al Hibernia P-15, was drilled on the Grand Banks 325 km east of St. John's Newfoundland in 80 m of water. Delineation drilling, completed during 1980 and the early part of 1981, has confirmed the pressure of a giant oil field which, in all probability, will contain recoverable reserves in excess of 1 billion bbls of oil. The discovery and first delineation wells each have an indicated productivity in excess of 20,000 b/d.

The oil field is located near the northwestern edge of the Jeanne d'Arc subbasin, a southwestern extension of the much larger East Newfoundland Basin. The Hibernia structure is a large north-northeast trending rollover anticline, bounded on the west by a major listric growth fault, and dissected into a number of separate blocks by transverse faults. The potentially most productive reservoirs are sandstones of Lower Cretaceous age which appear to be deltaic in origin.