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Milestones
OIL SANDS PROJECT
CANADA Construction has begun on multibillion-dollar oil sands project that Bechtel and Canadian subsidiary Bantrel are building in northern Alberta for a Shell Canada-led joint venture. The Athabasca Oil Sands Project Expansion 1 will increase the processing capacity of the Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton and expand mining facilities north of Fort McMurray. Bechtel and Bantrel completed front-end design for the expansion in June 2006. Construction completion is scheduled for July 2010.
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COPPER CONCENTRATOR COMPLETION
CHILE Bechtel has increased the capacity of Minera Los Pelambres's copper concentrator in the Andes Mountains by about 15 percent. Bechtel has built the $1 billion concentrator between 1996 and 1999 and then returned in 2001 to add a pebble crusher. The latest project, called Repower I, involved the installation of additional concentrator, grinding, and flotation equipment, as well as increasing power to handle new throughput. The new grinding mill was installed in a record time of 256 days. |
LOW-EMISSIONS POWER PLANT
USA Bechtel will construct a 565-megawatt lignite-fired power plant in Texas for energy company TXU under a lump sum, turnkey contract. The Sandow Steam Electric Station Unit 5 will be adjacent to an Alcoa aluminum smelter and will replace three of Alcoa’s existing power units, reducing environmental emissions from the site.
GAS FIELD DEVELOPMENT
INDIA Bechtel is providing project management services for India’s first deep water natural gas field development, in the Bay of Bengal. The KG D6 gas field, for Reliance Industries Limited, is 22 to 25 miles (35 to 40 kilometers) offshore, in water up to 3,900 feet (1,200 meters) deep. Gas production from KG D6 is projected to deliver a significant expansion of the country’s total production. The project, which encompasses subsea wells, control systems, pipelines, and other subsea equipment, an offshore platform, and an onshore terminal, is scheduled for first gas in mid-2008.
SAFETY FIRST
LATEST SAFETY MILESTONES Bechtel’s New Doha International Airport project team in Qatar has completed 1.3 million job hours without a lost-time incident. The East Side Access transportation project in New York recently completed 3.6 million accident-free hours. Bechtel’s project team at the Shell Scotford Upgrader Expansion project in Canada has completed 1.3 million hours without a lost-time incident. Other notable safety achievements include 19.2 million hours at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina; 6.9 million hours at the Sonahess oil recovery project in Algeria; 6.8 million accident-free hours at the Sakhalin project in Russia, completed in October 2006; 3 million hours at the Jamnagar refinery and petrochemicals complex in India; and 1.8 million hours at the Sabine Pass LNG Terminal project in Louisiana.
ASCE AWARD
USA Bechtel Special Operations Manager Tom Draeger has received the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award for Construction. The award is presented to civil engineers whose contributions enhance health, safety, and the economy. Former Bechtel Chairman Steve Bechtel, Jr. won the award in 2000.
MANAGEMENT MOVES
Bechtel has reorganized its Oil, Gas & Chemicals business unit to focus on upstream and downstream business sectors, managed by Jim Illich and Jim Jackson, respectively. Bill Dudley remains president of the business unit. Tom Draeger is now special operations manager. Alasdair Cathcart succeeds Draeger as president of Bechtel Construction Operations Incorporated. Rick Jackson has been named manager of Engineering.
HS1 TRACK COMPLETE, OVERHEADS ENERGIZED
UNITED KINGDOM A Bechtel-led consortium installed the last track segment on High Speed 1 in December 2006, setting the stage for completion of Britain’s first new railway in a century. 68-mile (109-kilometer) system between the Channel Tunnel and London will allow Eurostar trains to travel up to 186 miles (300 kilometers) per hour, reducing travel time between London and Paris to 2¼ hours and between London and Brussels to just over 1¾ hours when the final section of the line opens in November.
CYLINDER SHIPMENT COMPLETED
USA The last of 6,000 cylinders that once contained uranium hexafluoride (a gaseous uranium compound) left the U.S. Department of Energy’s former nuclear site at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, for processing in Ohio. The three-year Bechtel Jacobs-managed project entailed more than 5,000 shipments that traveled a total of 3.6 million miles (5.8 million kilometers) with no major safety, environmental, or traffic incidents.
CLOSER
Varied Treasures
Governments often require archaeological research prior to new construction projects, particularly in long-settled urban areas. Bechtel’s cultural resource management teams work with government and preservation agencies to ascertain the historical significance of building sites, and construction plans are designed to avoid damaging priceless history.
Bechtel teams have developed cultural resource plans worldwide, often uncovering fascinating artifacts as a result. On a British rail job, archaeologists discovered a 400,000-year-old elephant skeleton, a medieval water mill, and an Anglo-Saxon brooch (below); at a pipeline project in Maine, stone tools from the Ice Age; and at a subway project in Athens, Greece, a Roman bathhouse as well as hundreds of artifacts that now are on display in the system’s refurbished stations.
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