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Big Train on a Fast Track

Latest expansion of Trinidad's LNG facility ups capacity by 5.2 million tonnes a year.

By John Altdorfer
Photographs by Terry Lowenthal/Bechtel

They keep coming back for more. When the Atlantic LNG Company of Trinidad and Tobago announced plans to add a fourth train to its Atlantic liquefied natural gas facility in Point Fortin, no one was surprised that Bechtel would be the $1 billion project’s general contractor. After all, the company constructed trains 1 through 3 over the past decade at the Atlantic LNG site near Trinidad’s southwestern tip. But this ongoing relationship rests on more than familiarity. Indeed, Bechtel combined a mixture of “success breeds success” and “practice makes perfect” to score this LNG grand slam.

Already in production during its commissioning stage, Train 4 significantly increases the facility’s production capabilities. One of the largest of its kind, the train will have a capacity of 5.2 million tonnes per year, and will increase the annual capacity of the entire facility to 15.2 million tonnes.

“What’s every bit as important is that we’ll turn over the plant to the customer three months ahead of schedule, and under budget, says Bechtel Project Director Errol Rapp. “That means Atlantic LNG will get an extra three months’ production and income.”

The financial jump-start is just one reason that Atlantic LNG continues to sign on with Bechtel. The company’s safety record enhances the attraction. Since September 2002, workers have logged more than 15 million job hours on Train 4 without a lost-time accident. Including previous work, the streak stretches back another 11 million job hours to November 2001. That’s 51 consecutive months without a lost-time accident.

Site Construction Manager Tom Hill says there’s no mystery behind Bechtel’s ongoing success. “We get better with every new train,” he says. “It’s like making the wheel roll more smoothly instead of trying to reinvent it. We took lessons learned from Train 1 and applied them to Train 2 and 3. We did the same with Train 4.”

Applying those lessons begins long before workers excavate the first shovel of dirt. Starting with a milestone schedule, engineering, procurement, construction, and other personnel develop a base plan that sequences a project’s significant events, such as the start of work, commissioning, and startup. Along the way, different schedules focus on ever-narrowing windows of time and the disciplines and areas of work needed within them. When the work finally begins, on-site supervisors meet daily to monitor progress, assess challenges, and develop solutions. Nothing is left to chance.

“You can’t build an LNG train sitting behind a desk,” says Hill. “You have to get your feet on the ground to address issues as they arise. There’s no such thing as a sure bet.”

LNG sector Market Manager Amos Avidan says Bechtel sells peace of mind—and assumes a large amount of risk in doing so. “We sell certainty of outcomes,” says Avidan. “With our track record at Atlantic LNG, we can point out to the customer that we have completed every project on time and under budget. We are confident enough to accept lump-sum turnkey contracts, which place much of the liability on us.”

In essence, a lump-sum contract sets a fixed price on a project. If Bechtel agrees to complete a job for $500 million, the price stays the same despite any problems that might cause expensive delays and other cost overruns—a risky proposition unless you have the right combination of experience and expertise.

“We keep building the same plant, only better, each time,” says Avidan. “We have a template based on success that allows us to standardize procedures to help reduce costs and increase efficiency.”

Also helping to increase the certainty is a contract award process that cuts nearly a year from the time a project comes up for bid to the first day of work. Instead of bidding out the contract, Atlantic LNG selected Bechtel on a sole-source basis for Train 4—enabling the company to begin work almost immediately.

“By reducing the amount of time between the bidding and start of work,” says Avidan, “Atlantic LNG can start producing a year earlier, which could add $500 million to $600 million in revenue.”

Bechtel is turning over Train 4 to Atlantic LNG. But that won’t be the end of the company’s work there. “The demand for LNG isn’t going away,” says Avidan. “They’ve got the gas in Trinidad. And they know that we can help them get it to where it needs to go.”