Flower Power

By Sybil E. Hatch
Photographs by Terry Lowenthal/Bechtel

The Netherlands is famous for dark, cold, and windy weather, but the spring of 2003 was the warmest and sunniest in hundreds of years. Even the tulips rejoiced by blooming early.

In Rijnmond, a new combined cycle power plant also is blooming, the product of the warm atmosphere fostered by the people of Bechtel Power and Enka, one of Turkey’s largest construction firms. Together, they’re designing and constructing the Rijnmond Energy Center for a subsidiary of InterGen, the Bechtel-Shell venture.

Rijnmond is the latest in a string of successful projects involving Bechtel and Enka. The companies first teamed up to build a 229-kilometer section of the Trans-Turkish Motorway in the mid-1980s, and they’re currently working on the Croatian Motorway and artificial oil drilling islands in the Caspian Sea.

Bechtel and Enka also recently finished work on three power plants at Gebze, Adapazari, and Izmir in western Turkey, with a combined capacity of nearly 3,900 megawatts of electricity. Over the course of two years and many unique challenges, the two companies and cultures meshed to create an organization rich in camaraderie, common intent, and extreme skill. Today, the same capable team is building Rijnmond, located in an industrialized area 15 kilometers from Rotterdam. It’s the first independent power project in the Netherlands.

“The experience on the power plants in Turkey has benefited the Rijnmond project immensely,” says Tom Patterson, Bechtel-Enka Joint Venture (BEJV) project manager. “People know how to work together more efficiently. We have invested heavily in defining our team and refining our work processes to bring the best of both firms to bear on our joint projects.”

In some cases, BEJV has created hybrid systems based on the best of what Bechtel and Enka have to offer. In others, BEJV has adapted one or the other firm’s systems or processes wholesale. The result is a suite of engineering and construction capabilities, tested over several years.

BEJV’s financial reporting system, for instance, is a cross between Bechtel’s standard systems and Enka’s. The companies also have jointly developed tools for tracking equipment and supplies. The joint venture has adopted many aspects of Bechtel’s procurement process, along with Enka systems for controlling traffic functions and warehousing.

Bechtel engineers in Frederick, Maryland, are doing the primary design of this natural gas-fired plant, with Enka engineers doing much of the civil design in Istanbul, Turkey. “It’s been a tremendous advantage that our key engineers on both sides of the Atlantic know each other, how they think, and how they work,” says Patterson. The design has “come together like clockwork,” even though the Rijnmond plant represents the first use of a Siemens V94 combustion turbine on a Bechtel power project.

When complete, the cogeneration plant will generate 790 megawatts of electricity into the surrounding grid. In addition, it will produce up to 350 tonnes per hour of steam to the nearby refinery operated by Shell Netherlands.

The warm, dry weather has made for great construction productivity thus far, but it’s certainly not the only factor. Based on its experience in Turkey, BEJV was able to hit the ground running—safely. “Our key superintendents, foremen, and subcontractor management worked together in Turkey and now speak the same universal language of safety,” says Patterson.

The power plant is coming together in traditional Bechtel-Enka fast-track fashion. Pile driving was one of the first major milestones. In all, 4,400 concrete piles, each 25 to 30 meters long, were sunk through loose sand by BEJV’s Dutch subcontractor to provide a strong foundation for the plant. Over 40 percent of the land in the Netherlands is reclaimed from the sea, and the site at Rijnmond is no different.

A sophisticated water treatment facility is being built on-site to treat water from the adjacent canal so that it can be used for cooling systems as well as to generate water for steam production. Clarifiers and reverse osmosis take out most of the solids. The water is then polished with an electronic demineralization process. “The effluent from our plant, which will be discharged back into the canal, will be considerably cleaner than the water coming in,” says Patterson.

On-site and off-site, the workers have created a “home away from home.” Most of the craft workers for the three major subcontractors (civil, electrical, and mechanical) are Turkish and live together on two multistory houseboat-type barges about 5 kilometers from the plant. Other craft workers are local: Dutch, Belgian, German, and Polish.

There’s not much in the way of recreational activities in this industrialized area, with back-to-back refineries, chemical plants, and port facilities. The workers eat almost all meals together and stick around after dinner to play darts, bridge, or other games. This is the first trip to Europe for many of the workers, and they’re using the opportunity to tour nearby European cities. They play soccer and even skydive together.

The enthusiasm of the BEJV team has been mirrored by the reception the project has received locally. “We have had huge support from the authorities and communities for this plant,” says Mark Somerset, development manager for InterGen.

In short, Rijnmond has all the makings of a successful project: a partnership with a stellar track record; seasoned, committed workers; support from the local community; and, last but not least, a great year for tulips.

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