Milestones Q1 2001

• Employees at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) completed the safe transfer of spent nuclear fuel and core debris from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident into dry storage. Dry storage saves maintenance costs and provides safe repository until a final containment site is prepared. The material was removed from the damaged reactor in Pennsylvania and shipped to the lab between 1986 and 1990, where it has been stored under water. The lab is managed by Bechtel BWXT Idaho.
• Bechtel will serve as preferred engineering, procurement, and construction contractor for integrated gas company BG Group, under a five-year contract signed in April. The company will continue to work at the Atlantic LNG Company of Trinidad and Tobago liquefied natural gas plant at Point Fortin, Trinidad, of which BG is an owner, and at several other BG facilities worldwide. The agreement also makes BG a preferred Bechtel customer.
• WINFirst, an operator of broadband telecommunications networks, has awarded Bechtel a $1 billion turnkey contract for the buildout of its fiber-optic networks throughout the United States. The networks will provide high-speed access to cable television, telephone, data, and Internet services. The buildout has begun in two U.S. cities and will include as many as 12 markets over the next several years.
• Kite Networks, an integrated communications provider for small- and medium-sized businesses and consumers, announced that it has chosen Bechtel Telecommunications, a global engineering-construction organization, as its strategic implementation partner. Bechtel will assist Ridgeland, Mississippi-based Kite Networks in its rollout and delivery of fixed wireless broadband services in select metropolitan areas across the country. The two companies already collaborated to launch Kite Networks' successful beta test in Phoenix, Arizona.
• Bechtel Enterprises affiliate International Water Holdings will oversee new water utility privatization projects on two continents. In January, Ecuador’s state waterworks awarded a 30-year concession to IW to operate and administer Guayaquil's drinking water and sewerage services. The award came just one month after an IW joint venture announced it will improve and manage Tallinn, Estonia’s water utility, after acquiring a majority stake in that system.
• In December, the Croatian government officially opened the first section of a major four-lane motorway that Bechtel has been constructing with Turkish partner Enka. The 13-kilometer section connects Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, with Bregana at the Slovenian border. Work continues on the two remaining sections of the $900 million project, which totals 188 kilometers. Completion is scheduled for 2004.
• Bechtel is nearing completion of the first foreign-owned power plant in China, with an exceptional record of safety and diversity. The 724-megawatt, coal-fired Meizhou Wan project also was Bechtel’s first lump-sum turnkey job in that country. The project brought together a cross-cultural team representing many languages, religions, and nationalities. Bechtel designers, engineers from Fujian Design Institute and Fujian Test Institute, and a blend of foreign and domestic construction workers completed 17.3 million job hours with only one lost-time accident.
• The North American Contractors Association has appointed Bechtel’s Ken Hedman as its first chairman. The association of union contractors was formed in January 2000 to strengthen national collective bargaining agreements, and to help resolve and prevent shortages of skilled workers. Hedman is labor relations manager for Bechtel Construction Company. His term is two years.
• The Bechtel project team at ExxonMobil Chemical's polyethylene plant has been awarded the annual Gold Award for Safety Performance by Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower. Bechtel’s team consists of 400 craft workers and supervisors from several countries, requiring ongoing safety education programs in Thai and five other languages. The project recently surpassed 2.5 million job hours without a lost-time accident.
• Bechtel has been awarded a contract for management advisory services on a $1.5 billion toll-bridge improvement program in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two-year contract affects six bridges managed by the Bay Area Toll Authority. Bechtel will provide management advisory services and tools for project controls to help the customer monitor scope, cost, and schedule.
• Malaysia’s Construction Industry Development Board has awarded its first Foreign Builder of the Year Award to Bechtel Bina Malaysia, in recognition of the company’s training and environmental, safety, and health programs. Bechtel Bina has been performing engineering, procurement, and construction for the Optimal Chemicals (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd Butanol and Derivatives facility in Kerteh since May 1999.
• The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a 10-year, $4 billion waste treatment contract to Bechtel National, Inc. The team will design and build a vitrification plant at the site to treat millions of gallons of plutonium production wastes that now are stored in underground tanks at the government’s former Hanford site in Washington state. Vitrification turns hazardous wastes to glass for permanent safe storage.
• Bechtel has begun engineering and program management for the Bay Area Rapid Transit District’s $1.3 billion seismic retrofitting of its 150-kilometer-long, 39-station system in the San Francisco Bay Area. Bechtel is establishing retrofit criteria, and designing and managing construction of the initial segment of the project. Remaining segments will be retrofitted in phases over 5 to 9 years.